TRUE  STORIES   OF  GREAT  AMERICANS 


THOMAS   ALVA   EDISON 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE  MACMILLAN  C(5.  OF  CANADA, 

•    I*  TOONTO 


LTD. 

*  TOONTO 


*, 


.  . 

n  V, 


•THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 


BY 


FRANCIS    ROLT-WHEELER 
*>  // 

"THE  U.S.   SERVICE   SERIES,"    "THE   SCIENCE-HISTORY 
OF  THE  UNIVERSE,"   ETC. 


gotfc 
THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1915      "%, 

All  rights  reserve* 


COPYRIGHT,  1915, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  November,  1915- 


Nnrtocott 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

THERE  is  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction  in  writing  a 
biography  of  a  man  who  is  not  yet  dead.  Thomas 
Alva  Edison  is  alive,  very  much  so,  and  it  is  hoped 
that  some  measure  of  his  vitality  vibrates  in  these 
pages.  To  him,  to  his  friends,  and  to  former  bi- 
ographers—  especially  Messrs.  Dyer  &  Martin, 
Francis  A.  Jones,  W.  K.  L.  &  A.  Dickson,  and 
two  anonymous  writers  —  the  author  of  this  book 
acknowledges  his  indebtedness. 

A  personality  such  as  that  of  Edison  lends  itself 
to  many  presentments.  To  use  a  simile,  it  is  a 
gem  on  which  many  facets  may  be  cut.  This 
biography  of  "the  Wizard,"  however,  has  one 
end  in  view  —  to  show  Edison  as  a  Great  Ameri- 
can. That  his  life  is  a  splendid  stimulus  to  every 
American  boy  and  girl,  to  every  American  man 
and  woman,  is  the  writer's  belief,  and  to  fling 
before  the  youth  of  the  United  States  the  heroic 
figure  of  America's  greatest  inventor  in  its  most 
clarion  appeal  is  the  aim  and  purpose  of 

THE  AUTHOR. 


333697 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
"  WHY  DON'T  You  KNOW  ? " 

CHAPTER  II 
THE  "CANDY  BUTCHER" 18 

CHAPTER  III 
THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY 35 

CHAPTER  IV 
THE  CRACK  "  LIGHTNING-SLINGER  "    .        .        .  51 

CHAPTER  V 
"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!"          ....      68 

CHAPTER  VI 
BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH     .        .        .        .81 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR 93 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGE 

OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP 108 

CHAPTER  IX 
THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  BULB          .        .        .        .125 

CHAPTER  X 
MAKING  A  SHRINE  FOR  SPEECH         .        .        .        .137 

CHAPTER  XI 

"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY   .     .     .157 

CHAPTER  XII 
MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT 176 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

THOMAS  A.  EDISON.    Photograph  and  autograph 

Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

EDISON  AS  A  "CANDY  BUTCHER"  ....  24 
NEWSPAPER  PRINTED  ON  A  MOVING  TRAIN  .  .  50 
THE  BIRTHPLACE  OF  THE  ELECTRIC  LIGHT  .  .no 
WHAT  MAKES  A  PHONOGRAPH  SING  ....  146 
THE  KEEN-EARED  "DEAF"  INVENTOR  .  .  .184 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

CHAPTER  I 
"WHY  DON'T  You  KNOW?" 

IN  every  period  of  the  world's  history,  there 
are  men  who  become  the  great  characters  of  the 
times  in  which  they  lived.  Nearly  always  this 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  talents  they  possessed, 
and  the  kind  of  work  they  did,  was  particularly 
well  fitted  to  the  great  public  needs  of  their  time. 

Thomas  Alva  Edison  is  the  typical  American. 
From  boyhood  to  ripest  manhood  he  has  been 
keen  to  see  an  opportunity,  and  quick  to  turn 
that  opportunity  to  a  practical  use.  His  genius 
is  peculiar  because  it  is  so  American.  It  is  not 
as  a  scientist  that  Edison  is  great,  it  is  not  even 
as  an  inventor,  it  is  as  the  master  of  the  practical 
use  of  everything  he  touches  that  he  appears  a 
giant  mind  of  modern  times.  When,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1915,  Edison  was  made  Chairman  of  the 
Board  of  Civilian  Inventors,  as  an  aid  to  the 


2*  '  THOMAS -ALVA  EDISON 

national  defense  of  the  United  States  in  war  as 
well  as  peace,  it  was  America's  tribute  to  a  great 
American,  rather  than  merely  a  progressive  na- 
tion's recognition  of  an  able  inventor. 

Not  every  boy  can  be  an  inventor,  not  every 
life  can  follow  the  type  of  work  that  has  distin- 
guished Edison,  but  every  boy  and  girl  can  be  as 
American.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  "The 
Wizard  of  Menlo  Park"  —  his  nickname  for  many 
years  —  as  though  a  list  of  his  inventions  told  the 
story.  Edison  and  his  inventions  is  merely  a 
record  of  a  painstaking  advance  in  science ;  Edison 
through  his  inventions  is  the  story  of  a  life  of  ex- 
citement and  adventure. 

It  is  not  exaggeration  to  say  that  more  wonderful 
feats  have  been  done  in  Edison's  laboratory  than 
are  told  of  the  genie  of  the  "Arabian  Nights" ;  it 
is  a  modest  statement  to  say  that  no  giant  was 
ever  so  powerful*  as*  the  Giant  of  Electricity  that 
Edison  has  fought  to  tame ;  and  the  stories  of  his 
quest  in  the  farthest  corners  of  the  earth  for 
threads  of  carbon  for  his  lamp,  or  new  kinds  of 
wax  for  his  phonograph  records,  cannot  be  sur- 
passed by  the  narratives  of  any  explorer. 

Alone  among  the  inventors  of  the  world,  Edison 
has  always  set  before  himself  the  ideal  of  making 
his  inventions  useful  to  the  people.  Speaking  of 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  3 

some  interesting  experiments  that  he  had  aban- 
doned, on  one  occasion,  Edison  said : 

"I  could  have  worked  it  out  all  right,  if  I'd 
taken  time  enough,  but  what  was  the  use?  It 
wouldn't  have  been  good  for  anything! " 

Everything  has  contributed  to  make  Edison  a 
real  American.  His  work  is  the  expression  of 
the  man.  He  is  not  in  the  least  European,  neither 
in  his  way  of  thinking,  nor  in  his  methods  of  work. 
He  is  just  good,  plain,  solid  American.  He  can't 
help  it,  he  was  born  that  way. 

Just  exactly  the  same  things  that  have  brought 
the  United  States  to  the  top  among  the  nations 
of  the  world  have  made  Edison  what  he  is  to-day. 
He  is  self-made  and  proud  of  it.  He  has  built 
his  career  step  by  step.  He  has  always  had  a  huge 
desire  for  accomplishment  and  an  enormous  capac- 
ity for  work.  He  knows  how  to  organize  —  no  one 
better  —  and  not  only  can  he  use  the  skill  of  others, 
but  he  knows  how  to  stimulate  them  to  their  best 
endeavor. 

At  the  same  time,  the  imaginative  side  of  his 
work  must  not  be  forgotten,  in  looking  at  the 
practical  results.  It  is  in  the  times  of  nations 
when  "old  men  dream  dreams  and  young  men 
see  visions"  that  great  things  are  born.  Edison's 
gaze  is  always  upward  and  forward.  As  child, 


4  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

as  boy,  and  as  man,  he  has  always  held  fast  to 
the  belief  that  "to-morrow  is  a  new  day." 

Much  of  this  determination  to  get  ahead  and 
of  this  directness  in  pressing  toward  the  goal 
is  inherited.  In  his  forbears  Edison  was  for- 
tunate. Both  his  father  and  grandfather  showed 
the  same  independence  of  thought  and  unflinching 
belief  in  their  own  opinions.  When  they  thought 
they  were  right,  they  went  ahead  —  and  they 
usually  thought  themselves  right.  Sometimes 
'events  proved  them  to  be  wrong,  but,  undaunted, 
they  started  along  a  new  line  and  went  ahead 
still.  Indeed,  the  United  States  owes  the  honor 
of  counting  Thomas  A.  Edison  as  one  of  her 
sons  to  the  love  of  liberty  which  burned  in  the 
breast  of  his  father. 

Samuel  Edison,  the  inventor's  father,  was 
thoroughly  intolerant  of  injustice.  Anything  that 
he  thought  unjust,  simply  set  him  wild.  There 
are  half-a-dozen  stories  afloat  which  show  how 
quickly  he  stepped  forward  when  any  question 
of  principle  was  involved.  In  addition  to  this, 
Samuel  Edison  inherited  from  his  grandfather 
a  scrupulous  sense  of  honor. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  inventor's  great- 
grandfather—  Thomas  Edison  —  was  a  prominent 
bank  officer  and  financier  in  New  York  during  the 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  5 

Revolutionary  War.  He  was  held  in  high  regard 
as  a  standard  of  probity ;  so  much  so,  that  his  is 
the  only  signature  in  the  archives  for  authenticat- 
ing the  genuineness  of  the  Continental  currency. 

Old  Tom  Edison  was  a  hot  Tory.  In  spite  of 
that,  after  Independence  had  been  established, 
and  the  " Original  Thirteen  Colonies"  were  colonies 
no  longer,  the  New  York  financiers  were  anxious 
for  him  to  continue  under  the  new  regime.  Old 
Tom  Edison  refused.  Carrying  out  his  principles, 
he  went  to  Canada,  where  the  British  government 
made  him  a  gift  of  a  large  tract  of  land  in  recogni- 
tion of  his  loyalty  and  his  services. 

The  next  rebellion  in  which  the  Edison  family 
took  a  part  was  the  Papineau  rebellion.  Samuel 
Edison  was  a  strong  believer  in  the  rights  of  the 
people,  and  was  with  the  " constitutionalists"  as 
against  the  "royalists"  in  the  union  of  Upper  and 
Lower  Canada.  Indeed,  he  felt  so  strongly  on 
this  point  that  he  scornfully  refused  to  live  any 
longer  on  land  that  had  been  given  to  his  father 
by  the  crown,  repudiated  the  gift  with  stern  in- 
dependence, and  kept  a  hotel  at  Bayfield.  When 
rebellion  actually  broke  out  in  1837,  under  the 
French-Canadian,  Louis  J.  Papineau,  Samuel  Edi- 
son took  arms,  joined  the  insurgents,  and  rose 
to  the  command  of  Captain.  The  rebellion  failed, 


6  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

and  Captain  Edison,  as  one  of  the  rebel  leaders, 
was  hunted  for,  with  a  price  on  his  head. 

The  sturdy  lover  of  liberty  wasted  no  time, 
but  made  tracks  for  the  St.  Clair  River.  He 
did  not  dare  show  his  face  at  any  railroad  stations 
and  he  feared  that  getting  a  horse  might  attract 
attention.  Whereupon,  being  over  six  feet  in 
height,  and  with  a  gaunt,  muscular  frame,  he 
determined  to  walk  to  the  Land  of  Freedom. 
Stopping  only  once  for  a  three-hour  sleep,  Samuel 
Edison  walked  the  hundred  and  eighty-two  miles 
that  lay  between  him  and  safety.  These  powers 
of  endurance  were  a  part  of  Samuel  Edison's 
heritage  to  his  gifted  son. 

A  little  incident  which  occurred  at  the  time 
of  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  shows  the  sturdi- 
ness  of  the  Edison  stock.  When  recruits  were 
called  for,  Samuel  Edison  was  sixty-five  years 
of  age,  too  old  for  service.  But  he  was  not  too 
old  to  advise,  and  he  took  the  greatest  interest 
in  the  "boys"  who  were  going  to  the  front  in  the 
Union  Army.  One  day  it  chanced  that  a  friendly 
jumping  contest  was  begun  in  a  regiment  of  newly 
drafted  recruits  stationed  at  Fort  Gratiot, 
Michigan;  they  were  husky  young  fellows,  most 
of  them,  but  the  old  veteran  of  the  Papineau  Re- 
bellion out- jumped  them  all.  He  lived  to  the  ripe 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  7 

age  of  ninety-seven  years.  Indeed,  long  life 
is  hereditary  in  the  Edison  family,  the  inventor's 
grandfather  having  lived  one  hundred  and  three 
years,  while  his  great-grandfather  lived  to  be  one 
hundred  and  two  years  of  age. 

Having  decided  to  live  in  the  United  States,  for 
Canada  was  far  too  hot  to  hold  him,  Samuel 
Edison  finally  settled  down  in  Milan,  Ohio,  a 
small  town  where  he  thought  there  was  little 
likelihood  of  his  being  traced  by  the  Dominion 
authorities.  Finding  matters  peaceful  enough, 
he  decided  to  let  rebellions  alone  and  to  make 
his  home  there.  A  few  years  later  he  married 
a  young  Canadian  school-teacher  whom  he  had 
known  prior  to  the  Papineau  outbreak,  and  brought 
her  to  his  home  in  Milan. 

'It  seems  strange  now,  if  one  visits  that  sleepy 
little  Ohio  village,  to  realize  that  it  was  the  birth- 
place of  so  vigorous  and  world-shaking  a  per- 
sonality as  Thomas  A.  Edison.  It  is,  perhaps, 
even  more  difficult  to  realize  that  this  dozing 
rural  crossways  was,  at  the  time  of  Edison's  birth, 
a  busy  commercial  center.^ 

The  little  town  has  had  an  eventful  history. 
Seventy  years  ago,  before  the  railroads  had  reached 
that  part  of  the  country,  it  became  necessary  to 
find  an  outlet  for  the  great  quantities  of  grain  to 


8  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

be  shipped  to  eastern  points  from  the  vast  wheat 
and  corn  fields  of  Central  and  Northern  Ohio. 
The  Huron  River,  emptying  into  Lake  Erie, 
could  only  be  navigated  for  a  few  miles  above  its 
mouth,  and  so  a  landing  was  made  about  three 
miles  below  the  little  village  of  Milan.  A  number 
of  warehouses  were  built  there,  and  Lockwood 
Landing  showed  every  indication  of  becoming  a 
prosperous  market. 

The  people  of  Milan,  however,  were  wide- 
awake and  progressive,  and  a  project  was  broached 
by  some  of  the  merchants  to  build  a  canal  from 
Lockwood  Landing  to  Milan.  As  this  would 
bring  navigation  right  to  the  village  and  carry 
prosperity  with  it,  the  plan  was  approved  at 
once.  In  this  progressive  movement,  Samuel 
Edison  played  a  leading  part.  A  great  deal  was 
thought  of  his  judgment,  and  his  personality  was 
so  forceful  as  easily  to  win  others  to  his  way  of 
thinking.  In  his  ability  to  enlist  capital  in  the 
canal  project  is  a  foreshadowing  of  his  son's  ex- 
traordinary talents  in  securing  financial  backing 
for  his  operations. 

When  Thomas  A.  Edison  was  born,  February  1 1 , 
1847,  the  little  town  had  become  a  center  of  in- 
dustrial activity,  and  the  young  lad's  earliest 
recollections  were  those  of  a  thriving  market 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  9 

town  with  a  dozen  big  warehouses  on  the  bank 
of  the  canal.  All  day  long,  wagonloads  of  wheat 
and  other  grain  poured  into  the  place,  some  drawn 
by  horses,  but  more  of  them  by  the  ox  teams  which 
at  that  time  did  most  of  the  farm  hauling  of  the 
west.  Indeed,  so  well  did  the  town  thrive,  and 
so  important  a  factor  did  the  canal  become,  that 
shipbuilding  actually  became  a  prominent  in- 
dustry, and  several  vessels,  including  six  revenue 
cutters,  were  launched  in  the  waters  of  the  canal. 
Where  is  that,  canal  now?  Not  only  is  it  no 
longer  used,  but,  actually,  it  is  not.  It  does  not 
exist.  Wander  now  through  Milan,  the  small 
sleepy  place,  and  you  shall  search  in  vain  for 
the  grain  warehouses,  you  shall  look  in  vain  for 
the  long  lines  of  ox-drawn  wagons,  you  shall  listen 
in  vain  for  the  cracking  of  the  whips  and  the 
"gee"  and  "haw"  of  the  impatient  drivers,  you 
shall  even  look  in  vain  for  the  canal.  Perhaps, 
if  you  search  diligently  and  secure  the  guidance 
of  "the  oldest  inhabitant,"  he  will  point  out  to 
you  a  slight  depression  in  the  ground  which  may 
be  traced  for  a  few  miles  as  the  bed  of  the  old 
channel,  but  that  is  all.  Brief  was  the  span  of 
Milan's  fame  as  a  commercial  center,  but  she  has 
secured  a  far  more  enduring  reputation  as  the 
birthplace  of  her  great  son,  Thomas  A.  Edison. 


io  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Not  that  Milan  was  particularly  conscious  of 
the  greatness  of  the  boy.  Far  from  it.  Indeed, 
he  was  a  particularly  aggravating  youngster  in 
many  regards.  Every  properly  organized  boy 
and  girl  asks  questions  —  for  that  matter,  any 
child  who  does  not  ask  questions  ought  to  have 
a  dose  of  curiosity  squirted  into  him  some  way, 
—  but  Edison  was  simply  a  terror !  Just  as  soon 
as  he  was  able  to  talk,  he  plunged  into  a  steady 
stream  of  "Why?"  to  everything.  Some  of 
these  queries  his  father  could  answer,  a  still  larger 
proportion  of  them  could  be  solved  by  his  mother, 
but  the  youngster's  mind  was  too  fertile  and  his 
curiosity  too  overwhelming  for  any  one  to  keep 
up  with  it  to  the  end.  Sooner  or  later,  the  grown-up 
who  was  the  victim  of  this  remorseless  questioning 
would  have  to  fall  back  on  the  stock  answer : 

"I  don't  know." 

"Well,"  the  determined  child  would  reply, 
ruffling  up  his  hair  in  the  way  that  has  been  a 
characteristic  ever  since  he  could  reach  up  to  his 
hair  to  ruffle  it,  "why  don't  you  know?" 

Just  as  soon  as  he  was  able  to  toddle,  the  young 
lad  found  his  way  down  to  the  shipbuilding  yards. 
He  got  terribly  in  the  way  of  the  workmen,  and 
it  used  to  be  said,  laughingly,  that  whenever  the 
boy  came  down,  it  saved  time  to  have  one  of  the 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  n 

men  detailed  to  answer  his  questions.  In  spite 
of  this,  however,  'Al'  was  well  liked,  and  no 
matter  how  much  he  bothered  them,  there  were 
always  some  men  who  were  ready  to  give  him 
the  answers  which  he  really  wanted. 

So  persistent  was  the  questioning,  however, 
and  so  inquisitively  particular  were  some  of  his 
queries,  that  the  workmen  used  to  think  them 
foolish.  He  asked  questions  about  their  work 
which  they  themselves  could  not  answer.  What 
could  be  more-  absurd,  they  thought?  Not  a 
single  man  in  all  the  yards  ever  grasped  the  fact 
that  the  small  urchin's  queries  showed  that  he 
was  thinking  into  causes,  while  they  were  satisfied 
merely  to  do  the  things  that  they  had  learned  while 
in  their  apprenticeships. 

An  example  showing  how  early  the  experimental 
desire  displayed  itself  in  Edison  is  the  incident  of 
the  goose.  Having  pestered  his  mother  with 
questions  as  to  what  goose  eggs  were,  and  what 
was  in  them,  and  where  they  came  from,  and 
how  they  were  made,  and  if  they  were  all  made 
that  way,  and  why  the  goose  made  them  that 
way,  and  why  they  were  all  that  shape,  and  what 
would  happen  if  they  were  not  that  shape,  and  a 
hundred  more  such  queries,  he  reached  at  last  the 
question : 


12  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"Why  does  the  goose  squat  on  the  eggs, 
Mother?" 

"To  keep  them  warm,"  was  the  reply. 

"And  why  does  she  keep  them  warm?" 

"To  hatch  them,  dear." 

"What's  hatching?" 

"That  means  that  the  little  geese  come  out; 
they  are  born  that  way,  you  know." 

"And  does  keeping  the  eggs  warm  make  the 
little  geese  come?" 

"Yes." 

That  was  enough  for  Edison.  He  reasoned 
that  he  was  bigger  than  the  goose,  therefore  he 
had  more  warmth,  therefore  if  he  sat  on  the  eggs 
the  little  geese  would  come  quicker.  He  sat  on 
them.  The  reasoning  seemed  sound,  even  if  the 
results  showed  that  it  must  have  been  fallacious. 
One  thing  is  sure  —  that  particular  batch  of 
eggs  did  not  hatch  out. 

Grown-ups  do  not  always  follow  the  workings 
of  a  child's  mind,  and  incidents  such  as  his  sitting 
on  the  goose's  eggs  led  some  of  the  neighbors  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  boy  was  a  softy.  Even 
those  who  were  most  kindly  disposed  to  him  were 
inclined  to  take  the  view  of  his  detractors  when 
they  themselves  became  the  object  of  one  of  these 
bombardments  of  questions,  always  ending  up 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  13 

with   the  invariable  evasion  —  "I  don't  know," 
and  its  terrible  and  pitiless  query  of  rebuke  - 
"Why  don't  you  know?" 

The  "hired  girl"  of  the  Edison  household,  for 
many  years  one  of  the  boy's  sturdiest  admirers, 
lost  a  great  deal  of  her  enthusiasm  and  was  forced 
to  adopt  a  policy  of  "watchful  waiting"  whenever 
the  lad  was  around,  by  reason  of  one  of  his  experi- 
ments upon  her.  He  was  not  five  years  old  at 
the  time  and  he  had  settled  it  to  his  satisfaction 
that  the  only  reason  why  birds  could  fly  and  human 
beings  couldn't,  was  because  they  didn't  eat  the 
same  things.  So  he  worked  up  a  weird  concoction 
(in  which  worms  figured  largely)  and  insisted  on 
the  hired  girl  drinking  some  of  it.  She  did.  She 
didn't  fly,  but  the  boy's  father  did  —  for  the 
nearest  doctor. 

The  story  is  a  childish  one,  of  course,  but  after 
all  is  said  and  done,  the  principle  is  not  greatly  un- 
like one  which  was  successfully  followed  in  Edison's 
later  years,  one,  indeed,  which  has  added  to  the  art 
of  medicine  a  valuable  treatment  for  gout. 

"What's  the  trouble?"  asked  Edison  of  a  friend 
one  day,  on  meeting  him  in  the  street  and  noting 
the  swellings  of  his  finger  joints. 

"I  don't  know  exactly-  '  the  sufferer  began, 
when  Edison  struck  in  with  the  eternal  question. 


14  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"Why  don't  you  know?  Don't  the  doctors 
know?" 

"They  don't  agree,"  the  other  replied.  "But 
most  of  them  seem  to  think  it's  gout." 

"Well,  what's  gout?" 

"Deposit  of  uric  acid  in  the  joints,  I'm  told," 
answered  the  sick  man. 

"Why  don't  they  take  it  out  of  the  joints, 
then?" 

"They  don't  know  how." 

This  was  like  a  red  rag  to  a  bull. 

"Why  don't  they  know  how?"  stormed  Edison, 
indignantly. 

"Because  uric  acid  is  insoluble." 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  the  world-famous  experi- 
menter replied. 

On  his  return  to  his  laboratory,  he  started 
immediately  to  find  out  whether  it  were  true  or 
not  that  uric  acid  was  insoluble.  He  set  out  an 
array  of  test  tubes  —  a  couple  of  hundred  of 
them,  at  least  —  and  filled  them  all  about  a  quarter 
full  of  every  different  chemical  he  possessed. 
Into  each  he  dropped  a  few  uric  acid  crystals. 
Two  days  later  he  found  that  the  crystals  had 
dissolved  in  two  of  the  chemicals.  The  inventor 
was  justified,  experiment  had  again  blazed  the 
way,  and  now  one  of  these  very  chemicals  (hydrate 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  15 

of  tetra-ethyl  ammonium)  is  widely  used  in  the 
treatment  of  gout  and  other  diseases. 

Edison's  "Why  don't  they  know?"  therefore, 
in  this  case  has  helped  to  ease  the  pain  of  thou- 
sands of  people.  As  the  history  of  his  inventions 
unfolds  itself,  it  will  be  seen  how  he  made  use  of 
the  ideas  of  others.  Where  they  had  stuck,  where 
they  had  come  to  an  "  I  don't  know! "  point,  Edison 
put  his  persistent  query  and  finally  worked  out 
an  answer. 

In  Milan,  no  pne  was  sufficiently  foresighted 
to  see  in  the  boy's  exploits  the  prophecy  of  the 
powers  of  the  man.  He  would  have  been  the 
last  boy  that  the  wiseacres  would  have  picked 
out  as  destined  to  bring  the  greatest  honor  to  the 
town.  It  often  happens  that  way.  No  one  is 
wise  enough  to  tell  all  about  the  future  flower  by 
looking  at  the  seed. 

"I  was  always  a  careless  boy,"  said  Edison  in 
one  of  his  rare  personal  interviews,  "and  with  a 
mother  of  different  mental  caliber  I  should  prob- 
ably have  turned  out  badly.  But  her  firmness, 
her  sweetness,  her  goodness,  were  potent  powers 
to  keep  me  in  the  right  path.  I  remember  I 
used  never  to  be  able  to  get  along  at  school.  I 
don't  know  now  what  it  was,  but  I  was  always 
at  the  foot  of  the  class.  I  used  to  feel  that  the 


1 6  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

teachers  never  sympathized  with  me  and  that 
my  father  thought  that  I  was  stupid,  and  at 
last  I  almost  decided  that  I  must  really  be  a 
dunce.  My  mother  was  always  kind,  always 
sympathetic,  and  she  never  misunderstood  or 
misjudged  me.  But  I  was  afraid  to  tell  her  all 
my  difficulties  at  school,  for  fear  she  too  might 
lose  her  confidence  in  me. 

"One  day  I  overheard  the  teacher  tell  the  in- 
spector that  I  was  'addled'  and  it  would  not  be 
worth  while  keeping  me  in  school  any  longer. 
I  was  so  hurt  by  this  last  straw  that  I  burst  out 
crying  and  went  home  and  told  my  mother  about 
it.  Then  I  found  out  what  a  good  thing  a  good 
mother  is.  She  came  out  as  my  strong  defender. 
Mother  love  was  aroused,  mother  pride  wounded 
to  the  quick.  She  brought  me  back  to  the  school 
and  angrily  told  the  teacher  that  he  didn't  know 
what  he  was  talking  about,  that  I  had  more  brains 
than  he  himself,  and  a  lot  more  talk  like  that. 
In  fact,  she  was  the  most  enthusiastic  champion 
a  boy  ever  had,  and  I  determined  right  then 
that  I  would  be  worthy  of  her  and  show  her  that 
her  confidence  was  not  misplaced." 

Edison's  active  brain  and  his  habit  of  taking 
the  most  direct  road  of  testing  everything  he 
came  across,  got  him  into  scrapes  many  a  time 


"WHY  DON'T  YOU  KNOW?"  17 

after  this.  Indeed,  he  would  be  likely  to  admit 
that  it  did,  still.  But  Edison  has  possessed  the 
faculty  of  finding  friends  who  believe  in  him 
through  thick  and  thin.  Valuable  and  trusted 
friends  though  they  have  been,  Edison  to  this 
day  declares  that  his  best  backer  was  his  mother. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  "CANDY  BUTCHER" 

IT  is  a  good  illustration  of  Edison's  ability  to 
make  the  most  out  of  every  opportunity  that  came 
his  way,  to  see  how  he  utilized  for  his  own  ad- 
vancement the  very  force  which  caused  the  down- 
fall of  his  native  town. 

After  having  dug  the  canal,  the  capitalists  of 
Milan  so  highly  esteemed  their  cleverness  that 
when,  a  few  years  later,  the  Lake  Shore  railroad 
company  approached  them  with  regard  to  fran- 
chise and  other  arrangements  for  running  the 
road  to  Milan,  the  citizens  declared  that  they 
were  content  with  their  water  transportation  and 
would  stand  by  that.  As  a  result,  the  railroad 
was  surveyed  through  Norwalk  and  Wakeman, 
and  the  trade  of  Milan  first  dwindled,  then  de- 
parted absolutely. 

Before  trade  collapsed  too  far,  Samuel  Edison, 
who  was  " forehanded"  and  understood  the  value 
of  being  in  the  van  of  progress,  decided  to  move. 
After  careful  investigation  of  conditions  in  the 

18 


THE  "  CANDY  BUTCHER  "  19 

neighboring  towns,  he  decided  to  settle  in  Port 
Huron,  Michigan,  a  place  of  considerable  com- 
mercial activity.  A  roomy  house,  with  a  large 
apple  and  pear  orchard,  was  purchased,  quite  in 
the  country,  yet  within  easy  walking  distance  of 
the  town. 

The  view  was  magnificent,  so  fine,  indeed,  that 
Samuel  Edison  built  a  rickety  wooden  tower 
about  eighty  feet  high,  commanding  the  St.  Clair 
River  and  Lake  Huron.  The  combined  disad- 
vantages of  the  insecurity  of  the  structure  and 
the  ten  cents  fee  rendered  visitors  to  the  observa- 
tory few  and  far  between,  but  the  boy  spent  a 
great  deal  of  his  spare  time  on  the  summit,  and 
learned  astronomy  with  the  aid  of  an  old  telescope 
which  was  lent  him  by  his  father. 

The  education  of  the  boy  was  left  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  his  mother.  Her  early  training  as  a 
teacher  stood  her  in  good  stead,  and  she  conducted 
the  morning  lessons  for  her  son  with  the  same 
punctuality  and  rigid  observance  of  rule  which 
she  had  used  in  her  classes  in  the  public  schools. 

Thomas  Alva,  or  "Al,"  as  he  was  always  called, 
was  as  satisfactory  a  private  pupil  as  he  had  been 
an  unsatisfactory  one  in  a  class  with  other  boys. 
He  was  serious,  of  tremendous  application,  and 
had  a  marvelously  retentive  memory  for  things 


20  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

which  really  interested  him.  If  they  did  not  — 
well,  he  wouldn't  learn  and  he  couldn't  remember. 

This  remains  one  of  Edison's  greatest  weak- 
nesses. The  gaps  in  his  knowledge  are  as  un- 
expected and  surprising  as  is  the  extent  of  his 
information.  Mathematics  is  his  bane,  and  he 
has  very  little  use  for  it.  When  he  was  building 
the  first  great  central  station  for  the  electric  light- 
ing of  New  York,  he  was  always  in  conflict  over 
figures. 

"In  all  that  central  station  work,"  he  said, 
many  years  after,  "the  great  bugbears  I  had  to 
contend  with  were  the  mathematicians.  I  found, 
after  a  while,  that  I  could  guess  a  good  deal  closer 
than  they  could  figure,  so  I  went  on  guessing. " 

Some  one  asked  him  how  it  was  that  his  dynamos 
generally  came  up  to  the  required  power  when 
they  were  built  by  "guesswork,"  and  he  replied, 
with  a  smile, 

"Well,  I  happened  to  be  a  pretty  good  guesser !" 

Then,  in  order  to  show  how  mathematics  may 
prove  more  difficult  and  troublesome  than  "guess- 
work," the  inventor  told  the  story  how  he  had 
beaten  the  mathematicians  at  their  own  game. 
When  he  perfected  the  ordinary  pear-shaped  glass 
bulb  for  incandescent  electric  lights,  he  wanted 
to  find  out  the  exact  cubic  contents.  He  gave  the 


THE  "  CANDY  BUTCHER  "  21 

problem  to  several  eminent  mathematicians  and 
they  figured  it  out.  Their  answers  all  differed, 
though  only  slightly. 

" You're  all  wrong,"  said  Edison,  "and  I'll 
show  you." 

He  had  made  a  series  of  tin  cubes,  each  one  a 
trifle  smaller  than  the  other.  He  filled  a  bulb 
with  water  and  poured  it  first  into  one  cube,  then 
another,  until  he  found  the  one  that  held  exactly 
the  same  quantity  of  water  as  the  bulb.  Figuring 
the  cubic  contents  of  a  cube,  of  course,  was  easy. 

This  is  only  one  side  of  the  story.  The  other 
is  the  evidence  that  Edison  is  just  as  much  forced 
to  depend  on  mathematics  as  any  other  man, 
only  —  he  has  some  one  else  do  it  for  him,  When 
he  was  on  the  witness  stand,  describing  some 
experiments  that  he  had  made  for  the  State  of 
New  York  with  regard  to  electrocution,  he  stated 
that  the  temperature  of  a  tube  of  water  the  height 
of  a  man  would  rise  eight  degrees  Centigrade 
under  the  application  of  a  certain  current  of  elec- 
tricity. The  lawyer,  in  cross-examination,  asked 
the  inventor  how  many  degrees  that  meant  on 
the  Fahrenheit  scale.  ^  &  '  <  -f c  i 

"I  don't  know,"  Edison  replied. 

"You  don't  know  !"  exclaimed  the  lawyer  in  sur- 
prise. "Well,  surely  you  could  compute  it  for  us ? " 


22  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"I  don't  compute  such  things,"  was  the  reply. 

"How  do  you  find  out,  then?"  queried  the 
lawyer,  sharply. 

"I  ask  somebody." 

"Whom  do  you  ask?" 

"Oh,  I  have  men  to  do  such  things,"  the  in- 
ventor answered,  stifling  a  yawn.  And,  on  re- 
quest, he  called  on  A.  E.  Kennelly,  afterwards 
President  of  the  Institute  of  Electrical  Engineers, 
who  was  his  head  mathematician  at  the  time. 

The  incident  is  worth  remembering,  for  it  shows 
clearly  that  unless  Edison  had  possessed  the 
money  to  employ  Mr.  Kennelly,  his  work  would 
have  suffered  from  his  lack  of  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics. No  boy  can  say  to  himself,  "Edison 
isn't  a  mathematician,  I  don't  need  to  be."  Igno- 
rance of  any  subject  is  never  a  matter  for  boast. 

It  was  this  very  ability  to  do  some  things  and 
apparent  inability  to  do  others  that  crippled 
Edison  in  school.  Under  any  less  unusual  cir- 
cumstances than  the  home  tuition  plan,  it  would 
have  crippled  him  seriously.  But,  being  allowed 
to  go  his  own  way  to  a  certain  extent,  he  sprang 
ahead  in  his  studies  like  a  prairie  fire  in  the  autumn 
after  a  dry  spell.  At  the  age  of  nine  he  had  read, 
and  read  thoroughly,  half  a  dozen  of  the  big  his- 
tories, such  as  Hume's  "England,"  and  Gibbon's 


THE  "  CANDY  BUTCHER  "  23 

"Rome";  and  he  had  painfully  endeavored  to 
digest  and  remember  the  whole  of  the  "Penny 
Encyclopaedia."  Also,  he  had  managed  to  secure 
a  number  of  works  on  scientific  subjects,  and  be- 
fore he  was  ten  years  old,  was  conversant  with 
practically  everything  that  had  been  done  in 
electricity  up  to  that  time. 

The  first  three  years  of  the  boy's  life  in  Port 
Huron  were  given  over  almost  exclusively  to 
reading.  He  tried  to  read  the  Public  Library 
through  from  beginning  to  end,  until  the  librarian, 
noticing  the  lad's  lack  of  systematic  choice  in 
his  subjects,  gave  him  some  practical  advice. 
During  this  period  he  kept  up  with  almost  every 
electrical  discovery  being  made.  Edison  was 
fortunate  in  the  time  of  his  birth,  for  his  aptitude 
and  genius  for  things  electrical  came  at  the  same 
time  as  the  development  of  that  science. 

In  spite  of  the  interest  of  the  subject  itself, 
however,  there  is  more  than  a  shrewd  suspicion 
that  Edison's  intense  interest  in  electricity  was 
partly  due  to  the  fact  that  every  one  answered, 
"I  don't  know,"  when  he  tried  to  find  out  what 
electricity  really  was,  and  he  set  himself  to  dis- 
cover "why  they  don't  know." 

When  about  eleven  years  old,  young  "Al" 
Edison  determined  to  try  and  help  in  meeting  the 


24  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

family  expenses.  Practical  as  always,  the  boy 
was  more  interested  in  results  than  in  means,  and 
cared  less  about  the  character  of  the  work  than 
about  the  profits.  Naturally,  his  mind  ran  to 
selling  papers,  since  that  is  the  first  avenue  for  a 
boy.  But,  with  that  judgment  of  practical  issues 
which  has  ever  since  been  so  large  a  factor  in 
Edison's  development,  before  beginning  work  he 
figured  up  how  much  money  he  would  make  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  time  spent.  He  de- 
cided that  selling  news-sheets  through  the  streets 
did  not  bring  profit  enough.  Entirely  on  his  own 
account,  he  applied  to  the  Grand  Trunk  Railroad 
for  the  privilege  of  selling  newspapers,  books, 
magazines,  fruits  and  candies  on  the  trains  be- 
tween Port  Huron  and  Detroit. 

"  Everything  comes  to  him  who,  hustling, 
waits,"  said  Edison  once,  and  this  adage  applied 
to  his  boyhood.  While  his  application  was  on 
file,  he  turned  to  the  selling  of  papers  in  the  streets. 
He  found,  as  he  had  expected,  that  the  few  nickels 
he  gained  were  a  poor  compensation  for  the  amount 
of  work  involved.  He  was  more  successful  than 
the  other  boys,  however,  owing  to  the  fact  that  he 
read  the  papers  carefully  during  the  pauses  be- 
tween the  selling  of  his  wares,  and  accordingly 
often  was  able  to  catch  the  attention  of  a  possible 


By  special  permission  of  Harper  and  Brothers,  publishers  of  Dyer  and  Martin's 
"Life  of  Edison,"  and  Meadowcroft's  "Boy's  Life  of  Edison,"  copyrighted  1910. 
1911,  by  Harper  and  Brothers. 

EDISON  AS  A  "CANDY  BUTCHER" 


THE  "CANDY  BUTCHER"  25 

customer  by  his  references  to 'the  topics  of  the 
day,  while  the  other  " newsies"  were  content  with 
the  stereotyped  cry  of  "P-i-per,  Ev-en-in'  pi-per !" 
At  last  his  application  was  granted,  and  the  boy 
began  his  duties  as  a  trainboy  or  "candy  butcher," 
in  the  slang  of  that  time. 

The  day  was  a  long  and  hard  one.  Young 
Edison  had  to  be  aboard  the  train  a  little  after 
6.30  A.M.  to  arrange  his  wares  before  the  train 
started,  which  was  at  7  o'clock.  Detroit  was 
reached  at  10  A.M.,  and  the  remainder  of  the  morn- 
ing and  the  afternoon  was  spent  in  buying  goods 
to  sell  on  the  train.  Though  extremely  quiet 
and  always  preoccupied,  the  boy  had  the  faculty 
of  causing  people  to  like  him.  His  self-confidence 
and  boyish  dignity  always  won  respect. 

As  a  consequence  he  became  very  well  known 
in  Detroit,  and  the  fruit  vendors,  the  stationery 
stores  and  the  candy  shops  regarded  him  as  a 
favored  customer.  He  was  always  keen  to  take 
advantage  of  sales,  also,  and  many  a  small  item 
found  its  way  into  his  stock  to  be  sold  at  a  fair 
advance  on  the  investment.  The  return  trip  was 
begun  at  4.30  P.M.  and  it  was  seldom  earlier 
than  8  o'clock  when  the  train  reached  Port  Huron, 
and  verging  to  9  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  the 
boy  reached  home  for  supper. 


26  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Young  Edison  had  a  good  business  head,  and  with- 
in a  year  of  his  first  entering  the  railroad  work,  he 
had  two  assistants,  as  well  as  the  privilege  on  an- 
other train.  His  profits  were  from  $12  to  $20  a 
day. 

These  were  the  times  of  the  Civil  War.  News- 
papers were  not  merely  read  with  interest,  they 
were  snatched  at  with  eagerness.  Most  boys 
would  have  been  well  satisfied  with  the  demand 
that  existed.  Not  so  "Al"  Edison.  He  saw  no 
reason  why  he  could  not  sell  twice,  three  times  as 
many  more.  Selling  papers  was  his  business. 
Very  well.  He  would  raise  that  business  to  the 
highest  point  of  efficiency. 

He  made  friends  with  one  of  the  compositors 
on  the  Detroit  Free  Press  and  used  this  acquaint- 
anceship to  such  good  effect  that  he  gained  access 
to  the  proofs.  By  reading  these,  he  was  able  to 
know  nearly  every  item  in  the  paper  before  it 
was  printed,  a  fact  which  aided  him  greatly  in  sell- 
ing his  papers.  On  the  train  he  had  no  more  time 
than  was  necessary  to  sell  them. 

Several  times  the  keen  lad  noticed  that  when 
there  was  war  news  of  an  especially  interesting  char- 
acter, his  papers  would  sell  like  hot  cakes,  and  un- 
less he  were  careful,  there  would  be  none  left  for  his 
regular  customers  at  the  end  of  the  trip.  This  set 


THE."  CANDY  BUTCHER  "  27 

him  thinking,  and  in  a  business  deal  that  he  him- 
self has  never  rivaled  since,  he  determined  upon  a 
plan. 

A  few  days  later  occurred  the  great  two  days' 
battle  of  Shiloh,  won  by  the  Union  Army,  but  in 
which  the  loss  of  life  by  both  armies  was  very 
severe.  His  friend  in  the  Detroit  Free  Press  office 
showed  him  a  proof  containing  the  news.  The  boy, 
who  had  been  following  the  campaign  closely,  saw 
the  strategic  value  of  this  victory  and  also  saw  its 
news  value.  He  perceived  that  the  time  had 
come. 

Hurrying  to  the  station,  he  ran  as  fast  as  he 
could  to  the  telegraph  office,  and  told  the  operator, 
who  was  his  friend,  all  about  the  battle.  Then  he 
continued,  making  the  following  offer : 

' 'If  you  will  wire  to  each  of  the  principal  sta- 
tions on  the  road,  where  that  train  stops,  and  ask 
the  station  master  to  chalk  on  the  black  bulletin 
board  —  used  for  showing  time  of  arriving  and 
departing  trains  —  the  news  of  the  battle  and 
the  number  of  lives  lost,  I'll  give  you  Harper's 
Weekly,  Harper's  Monthly  and  a  daily,  free,  for  six 
months." 

The  operator  agreed  at  once  to  the  proposal. 

Back  to  the  office  of  the  Free  Press  went 
Edison. 


28  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"Please,  I  want  a  thousand  papers  instead  of 
three  hundred,"  he  said  to  the  delivery  clerk, 
"and  I'll  pay  you  to-morrow." 

The  clerk,  who  was  not  permitted  to  sell  papers 
on  trust,  refused  him. 

Feeling  desperate,  and  determined  not  to  lose 
the  opportunity  that  had  been  made  by  the  tele- 
graph operator's  willingness,  the  boy  decided  on 
a  bold  stroke.  He  went  to  the  editorial  rooms  and 
asked  to  see  the  editor.  At  first  he  was  refused 
admittance,  but  his  manner  was  so  positive  and 
his  statement  that  his  business  was  important 
seemed  so  assured,  that  he  was  admitted  to  an 
office  where  two  men  were  talking. 

No  sooner  had  he  stated  in  short,  crisp  sentences 
what  he  had  done,  and  how  he  had  opened  a  new 
avenue  for  the  extended  sale  of  the  paper,  than 
one  of  the  men,  with  a  short  laugh,  leaned  forward, 
wrote  a  few  words  on  a  scrap  of  paper  and  handed 
it  to  Edison.  This  was  Wilbur  F.  Storey,  after- 
wards founder  of  the  Chicago  Times. 

"Take  this  down,"  he  said.  "I  wish  you  luck. 
Hope  you  come  out  on  the  right  end." 

Edison  thanked  him,  got  his  thousand  papers, 
hired  another  boy  to  help  him  carry  the  pile  to 
the  train,  and,  as  it  pulled  out,  set  to  work  folding 
them.  The  remainder  of  the  story  may  be  told 


THE  "CANDY  BUTCHER"  29 

in  Edison's  own  words,  quoted  mainly  from  Dick- 
son's  "Life  of  Edison." 

"At  Utica,  the  first  station  out  from  Detroit, 
and  about  twelve  miles  distant,  I  usually  sold 
two  papers,  our  customary  charge  being  five  cents 
each.  As  we  approached  the  station  on  this  day, 
I  put  my  head  out  to  look  forward,  and  thought 
I  saw  an  excursion  party.  I  had  half  a  dozen 
papers  in  my  hand.  As  we  came  nearer,  and  the 
people  caught  sight  of  me,  they  commenced  to 
gesticulate  and  shout,  and  it  suddenly  occurred 
to  me  that  they  wanted  papers.  I  rushed  back 
into  the  car,  grabbed  an  armful,  and  when  I  got 
upon  the  platform,  I  sold  forty. 

"Mount  Clemens  was  the  next  station.  When 
it  came  in  sight,  I  thought  there  was  a  riot.  The 
platform  was  crowded  with  a  howling  mob,  and 
when  the  tones  became  intelligible,  I  realized 
that  they  were  after  news  of  Pittsburg  Landing 
(Battle  of  Shiloh),  so  I  raised  the  price  of  papers  to 
ten  cents  and  sold  a  hundred  and  fifty  where  I 
had  never  before  disposed  of  more  than  a  dozen. 

"As  other  stations  were  reached,  these  scenes 
were  repeated,  but  the  climax  came  when  we  got 
to  Port  Huron.  There  the  town  is  quite  a  long 
ways  from  the  station,  so  it  had  been  my  habit 
to  jump  from  the  train  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 


30  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

from  the  depot.  I'd  paid  a  little  Dutch  kid  to 
haul  several  loads  of  sand  to  that  point,  and  the 
engineers  always  knew  I  was  going  to  jump  and 
slowed  down  a  bit.  Still,  I  was  quite  an  expert. 
I  heaved  off  my  bundle  of  papers  and  jumped. 
Shouldering  the  bundle  I  started  for  the  city,  as 
usual  being  met  by  the  Dutch  boy. 

"We'd  hardly  got  half  way  to  the  town  when  I 
met  a  crowd  hurrying  toward  the  station.  I 
thought  I  knew  what  they  were  after,  so  I  stopped 
in  front  of  a  church,  where  a  prayer-meeting  was 
just  closing,  raised  the  price  to  twenty-five  cents 
a  copy  and  commenced  to  take  in  a  young  fortune. 
Almost  at  the  same  moment  the  prayer-meeting 
came  to  an  end,  the  members  came  rushing  out, 
and  if  the  way  coin  was  produced  is  any  indication, 
the  deacons  must  have  forgotten  to  pass  the  plate 
at  that  meeting." 

Edison's  biggest  haul,  however,  was  one  day  when 
he  encountered  a  group  of  young  Southerners 
who  had  come  up  North  on  some  special  business, 
but  were  having  no  end  of  a  lark  at  the  same  time. 
Young  Edison  was  carrying  his  basket  of  nuts 
and  apples  through  the  car.  Luck  had  been  bad 
so  far,  he  hadn't  made  a  single  sale  in  the  smoking 
car,  and  even  in  the  general  car  —  which  used  to 
be  called  the  "  ladies'  car  "  —  the  first  few  seats  had 


THE  "CANDY  BUTCHER"  31 

been  profitless.  As  the  boy  came  down  to  the  seat 
where  these  young  chaps  were  sitting,  one  of  them 
suddenly  grabbed  the  basket  and  threw  the  con- 
tents out  of  the  window. 

For  a  moment  the  boy  was  too  surprised  to 
speak,  then  the  Southerner  politely  handed  back 
the  basket,  and  speaking  over  his  shoulder  said 
to  an  aged  negro  sitting  behind,  evidently  an  old 
slave, 

"Nicodemus,  give  this  young  gentleman  a 
dollah!" 

The  darky  grinned,  and  unlocking  a  large  iron- 
bound  box  which  was  before  him  on  the  seat,  full 
of  money  and  valuables,  took  out  a  dollar  and  gave 
it  to  the  boy.  Distinctly  surprised  and  not  under- 
standing the  matter  at  all,  young  Edison  grabbed 
the  dollar  and  hurried  away  with  the  empty 
basket.  After  all,  he  had  made  a  good  profit  on 
the  basketful  of  fruit.  Quickly  he  filled  up  his 
basket  again  and  started  down  the  aisles  of 
the  train.  This  time  he  piled  his  basket  with 
prize  packages.  Only  one  purchase  was  made. 
Presently  he  reached  the  point  hi  the  train  where 
the  Southerners  were  sitting.  He  stopped  and 
was  about  to  speak  when  one  of  them  said, 

"Excuse  me,  suh,"  grabbed  the  basket  again 
and  sent  the  prize  packages  out  of  the  window  in 


32  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

the  same  way  that  the  peanuts  and  apples  had 
gone.  Everybody  laughed  except  the  Southern- 
ers, who  never  cracked  a  smile  through  the  whole 
performance.  This  time  Edison  said, 

"Look  here,  Mister,  do  you  know  how  much 
those  were  worth?" 

"No,  suh,"  he  answered,  "how  much?" 

"  There  were  just  forty,"  the  train-boy  replied, 
"except  for  one  that  I  sold  in  the  smoking  car." 

"Nicodemus,"  said  the  other,  "count  out  the 
money  for  the  boy." 

Again  Edison  trudged  away  with  the  empty 
basket  and  the  filled  pocketbook.  He  hustled 
back  as  quickly  as  he  could  with  the  morning 
papers.  The  passengers  had  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  thing  and  they  laughed  in  anticipation  as 
soon  as  the  boy  came  in  the  car.  It  didn't  cost 
them  anything,  and  the  sport  certainly  relieved 
the  tedium  of  the  journey.  Naturally,  none  of 
them  bought  any  papers. 

As  soon  as  the  boy  came  within  reach  of  the 
Southerners,  one  of  the  party,  a  different  chap 
this  time,  yanked  the  bundle  from  the  lad's  arm 
and  threw  them  out  of  the  window  after  the  other 
things.  This  time  Edison  laughed. 

"Settle  with  Nicodemus,"  the  Southerner  com- 
mented in  an  offhand  manner,  and  Nicodemus 


THE  "CANDY  BUTCHER"  33 

handed  out  the  necessary  money  with  the  gravity 
of  a  judge. 

Then  Edison  decided  to  get  into  the  game  him- 
self. He  went  into  the  baggage  car  and  hunted 
up  every  paper  available,  over  a  hundred  of  them 
being  returns  from  the  day  before,  which  he  was 
going  to  turn  in  at  the  end  of  the  day's  trip.  It 
made  a  huge  pile,  almost  all  that  the  boy  could 
do  to  stagger  under.  When  he  reached  the  door 
of  the  car  and  shouted  "Pi-per"  in  the  accepted 
manner,  the  passengers  guffawed  in  expectation. 
The  Southerners  didn't  like  to  back  down,  be- 
cause they  knew  every  one  in  the  car  was  watching 
them  and  they  were  trying  to  show  off.  So  they 
didn't  hesitate  a  second,  but  just  hefted  the  entire 
lot  between  them  and  spread  them  over  the  land- 
scape. 

"Look  yah,  suh,"  said  the  elder  of  the  party,  as 
soon  as  Nicodemus  had  arranged  the  necessary 
financial  end  of  the  situation,  "have  yo'  anything 
else  on  board?" 

"Nothing  except  my  basket  and  my  box,"  the 
lad  replied. 

"Well,  bring  those,  too." 

The  box  was  too  big  for  Edison  to  carry,  but  he 
"up-ended"  it  and  dragged  it  down  the  aisle  of 
the  car  to  where  the  three  young  bloods  sat.  The 


34  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

basket  followed  the  same  route  as  the  other  things, 
and  Nicodemus  chucked  the  box  off  the  rear  plat- 
form. 

"Have  you  nothing  mo'  to  sell?"  one  of  them 
then  asked. 

"I  would  have  brought  in  the  smoking  car 
stove,  if  it  hadn't  been  alight,"  Edison  was  used 
to  quote  himself  when  telling  this  story,  "  but 
I  had  to  say  that  there  really  was  nothing  more." 

"Well,  then,"  said  the  other,  "Nicodemus,  yo' 
can  throw  this  boy  out  of  the  window." 

There  was  a  howl  of  laughter  from  the  other 
passengers,  and  as  Nicodemus  got  up  with  the 
evident  intention  of  carrying  out  his  master's 
orders  to  the  letter,  Edison  got  out  of  that  car  as 
quickly  as  he  ever  did  anything  in  his  life. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY 

THE  occupation  of  a  "  candy  butcher,"  however 
profitable,  could  not  be  expected  to  engage  more 
than  a  small  share  of  so  active  a  mind  as  that  of 
young  Edison.  The  ''mixed"  train,  on  which 
his  work  lay,  consisted  of  a  baggage  car,  a  smoking 
car  and  a  general  car.  The  baggage  car  was 
divided  into  three  compartments  —  one  for  bag- 
gage, one  for  United  States  Mail,  and  one  for  ex- 
press matter.  This  last  section  was  never  used, 
and  it  was  in  this  that  the  lad  kept  his  supplies. 

One  of  the  stores  from  which  the  boy  bought 
a  large  part  of  his  wares  was  kept  by  J.  A.  Roys, 
who  carried  books,  magazines,  stationery  and 
notions.  It  was  largely  owing  to  a  chance  pur- 
chase of  a  printing-press  that  Edison  branched 
into  the  next  period  of  his  career,  that  of  editor 
and  newspaper  proprietor. 

"I  sold  Edison  that  famous  printing-press," 
Mr.  Roys  is  quoted  by  F.  A.  Jones  as  having  said, 
"and  I  have  sometimes  wondered  what  became  of 

35 


36  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

it.  I  got  it  from  the  tenant  of  a  house  I  owned, 
who  couldn't  pay  his  rent.  To  reimburse  me,  he 
turned  over  the  printing-press. 

"  Young  Edison,  who  was  a  good  boy  and  a 
favorite  of  mine,  bought  goods  of  me  and  had  the 
run  of  the  store.  He  saw  the  press,  and  I  suppose 
the  idea  of  publishing  a  paper  of  his  own  immedi- 
ately occurred  to  him,  for  he  would  catch  on  to 
anything  new  like  lightning.  He  examined  the 
machine,  got  me  to  show  him  exactly  how  it 
worked,  and  finally  bought  it  from  me  for  a  small 
sum. 

"Afterwards  I  saw  many  copies  of  the  paper 
he  printed,  and  for  several  years  kept  some  as 
curiosities,  but  they  got  torn  up  or  lost,  and  now 
I  don't  believe  there  is  one  to  be  had  unless  he 
owns  it  himself.  [This  was  a  shrewd  guess,  for 
Edison  does  own  the  only  known  copy  in  exist- 
ence.] He  was  a  smart  youngster  and  I  always 
prophesied  great  things  of  him." 

As  the  same  baggage  car  was  always  on  the 
train,  Edison  moved  his  printing-press  into  it. 
Through  his  friends  on  the  Detroit  Free  Press,  for  a 
very  small  sum  he  bought  a  lot  of  old  type,  much 
of  which  had  been  "pied,"  and  a  few  battered 
"stock"  cuts  were  thrown  in,  for  good  measure. 
He  had  learned  to  set  type,  and  two  weeks  after 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  37 

the  purchase  of  the  printing-press,  appeared  the 
first  copy  of  The  Weekly  Herald,  written,  set  up, 
printed,  published  and  sold  by  the  fourteen-year- 
old  boy. 

The  Weekly  Herald  was  a  local  paper  and  claimed 
to  be  nothing  else,  and,  as  was  natural  in  the  only 
paper  in  the  world  up  to  that  time  printed  and 
published  on  a  moving  train,  railroad  matters 
claimed  a  good  share  of  the  editor's  attention. 
The  boy  side  of  Edison,  however,  appears  in  his 
biggest  "news  item,"  which,  headed  "DIDN'T 
SUCCEED,"  ran  in  exactly  the  following  manner : 

"A  Gentleman  by  the  name  of  Watkins,  agent  for  the 
Hayitan  government,  recently  tried  to  swindle  the  Grand 
Trunk  Railway  company  of  sixty-seven  dollars  the  price 
of  a  valise  he  claimed  to  have  lost  at  Sarnia,  and  he  was  well 
night  successful  in  the  undertaking. 

"But,  by  the  indominatable  perseverance  and  energy  of 
Mr.  W.  Smith,  detective  of  the  company,  the  case  was 
cleared  up  in  a  very  different  style.  It  seems  that  the 
would  be  gentleman  while  crossing  the  river  on  the  ferry 
boat,  took  the  check  off  of  his  valise,  and  carried  the  valise 
in  his  hand,  not  forgetting  to  put  the  check  in  his  pocket, 
the  baggageman  missed  the  baggage  after  leaving  Port 
Huron,  while  looking  over  his  book  to  see  if  he  had  every 
thing  with  him,  but  to  his  great  surprise  found  he  had  lost 
one  piece,  he  telegraphed  back  stateing  so,  but  no  baggage 
could  be  found.  It  was  therefore  given  into  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Smith,  to  look  after,  in  the  meantime  Mr.  Watkins 


38  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Tubman  Agent  at  Detroit,  asking  to 
be  satisfied  for  the  loss  he  had  sustained  in  consequence, 
and  referring  Mr.  Tubman  to  Mr.  A.  W.  Howard,  Esq., 
of  Detroit,  and  the  Hon.  Messrs.  Brown  and  Wilson  of 
Toronto  for  reference.  We  hardly  know  how  such  men  are 
taken  in  with  such  traveling  villians,  but  such  is  the  case, 
meantime  Mr.  Smith,  cleared  up  the  whole  mystery  by 
finding  the  lost  valice  in  his  possession  and  the  Haytian 
agent  offered  to  pay  ten  dollars  for  the  trouble  he  had  put 
the  company  to,  and  to  have  the  matter  hushed  up, 

"Not  so,  we  feel  that  the  villian  should  have  his  name 
posted  up  in  the  various  R.R.  in  the  country,  and  then  he 
will  be  able  to  travel  in  his  true  colors." 

The  same  indignation  against  an  unjust  claim 
which  made  his  father  stand  out  against  injustice, 
forty-five  years  before,  shows  clearly  in  this  article. 
It  shows,  too,  that  understanding  of  the  value  of 
personalities  which  is  one  of  Edison's  great  charms. 
The  inventor  is  very  human  and  a  very  good  friend. 

The  Weekly  Herald  was  a  great  success.  Its 
biggest  "sworn  circulation"  was  about  seven 
hundred  copies,  of  which  nearly  five  hundred  were 
subscriptions.  The  paper  attracted  the  attention 
of  the  famous  English  engineer,  Robert  Stephenson, 
who  ordered  a  thousand  copies  for  himself,  for 
distribution  in  railway  circles  all  over  the  world. 
Even  the  London  Times,  the  real  old  "  Thunderer  " 
as  it  was  in  those  days,  famous  in  both  hemispheres 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  39 

as  the  stiffest  and  most  conservative  journal  ever 
known,  unbent  sufficiently  to  notice  the  little 
paper  and  even  quoted  from  its  columns.  Finan- 
cially, also,  it  was  a  success,  and  netted  its  four- 
teen-year-old proprietor  an  income  of  about  forty- 
five  dollars  a  month. 

With  his  work  as  train-boy  and  his  weekly  paper, 
one  would  have  imagined  Edison's  energies  to  be 
fully  occupied.  This  was  not  the  case.  As  soon 
as  the  novelty  of  getting  out  the  Herald  began  to 
pall,  and  it  became  a  matter  partly  of  drudgery,  the 
lad's  eager  brain  sought  a  new  object  of  interest. 
This  he  found  in  chemistry  and  in  electricity.  The 
success  of  his  ventures  in  telegraphing  war  news 
ahead  had  made  Edison  acquainted  with  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  telegraph,  and  one  of  his  firm  ambi- 
tions was  to  become  a  telegraph  operator.  But 
as  of  old,  his  interest  was  stimulated  by  the  mys- 
tery of  electricity.  To  every  deadlock  came  his 
invariable  query,  "Why  don't  they  know?" 

Always  eager  to  find  out  for  himself,  young  Edi- 
son added  to  his  little  workshop  in  the  express 
section  of  the  baggage  car,  self-made  telegraph 
instruments  of  a  crude  sort,  batteries  and  chemi- 
cals. Little  by  little  the  collection  grew,  until 
it  became  a  jumble  of  things.  The  conductor  of 
the  train,  a  clean-cut,  duty-loving  Scotchman, 


40  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

named  Alexander  Stevenson,  had  never  been  favor- 
ably disposed  to  the  transformation  of  part  of  the 
baggage  car  into  a  combined  printing-shop  and 
laboratory. 

Although  he  did  not  approve  of  it,  Conductor 
Stevenson  was  fair.  As  long  as  the  train-boy  did 
his  work,  and  his  printing-press  and  chemicals  did 
not  interfere  with  the  running  of  the  train,  he  was 
willing  enough  to  give  the  lad  a  chance  to  educate 
himself.  The  conductor  belonged  to  the  old  school, 
and,  besides,  had  a  temper  as  quick  as  his  Scotch 
accent  was  strong. 

One  unhappy  day,  when  the  train  was  running 
over  a  rough  bit  of  road,  a  phosphorus  bottle, 
which  had  been  jolted  from  its  place,  fell  to  the 
floor  and  broke,  bursting  into  flame  as  it  did  so. 
The  woodwork  caught  fire  and  the  floor  began  to 
blaze. 

The  conductor  wasted  no  time.  Without  a 
word,  he  snatched  at  the  fire  buckets,  and  by 
prompt  work,  put  out  the  fire  in  a  few  minutes. 
While  the  blaze  lasted,  the  matter  was  too  seri- 
ous for  speech,  but  the  instant  that  the  danger  was 
over,  the  peppery  Scotchman  turned  on  the  boy, 
cuffed  him  on  the  side  of  the  head,  and  soundly 
berated  him  for  imperiling  the  lives  of  passengers 
on  his  train. 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  41 

As  the  engine  was  then  slowing  up  at  Mt.  Clem- 
ens, the  conductor  emphasized  his  remarks  by 
throwing  out  on  the  platform  all  the  boy's  belong- 
ings, including  the  printing-press,  which  he  toppled 
out  as  though  it  were  a  trunk,  breaking  it  to  pieces. 
Chemicals,  batteries,  instruments  —  everything 
went  into  the  same  heap.  Only  the  basket  of 
supplies,  which  belonged  to  the  official  work  of 
"candy  butcher,"  remained.  Dazed,  as  much  by 
sorrow  over  the  destruction  of  his  cherished  labora- 
tory as  by  the  box  on  the  ears  he  had  received, 
young  Edison  stood  on  the  platform  at  Mt. 
Clemens  and  watched  his  scientific  home  disap- 
pearing in  the  distance. 

A  great  deal  has  been  written  about  this  inci- 
dent, and  the  conductor  has  been  sharply  criticized, 
especially  as  there  is  more  than  a  suspicion  that 
the  great  inventor's  deafness  was  caused  by  this 
box  on  the  ear,  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  that  Steven- 
son could  have  done  anything  else  than  he  did. 
He  was  the  conductor  in  charge  of  the  train  and 
the  safety  of  passengers  was  his  first  considera- 
tion; when  he  found  that  a  boy  of  fourteen  was 
endangering  a  train  for  which  he  was  responsible, 
he  could  do  nothing  less  than  remove  the  danger. 
One  may  sympathize  with  young  Edison,  "  standing 
forlornly  among  the  ruins  of  his  most  cherished 


42  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

possessions,"  but  the  inventor  was  in  the  wrong. 
The  baggage  car  of  a  moving  train  is  not  the  place 
for  explosive  or  inflammable  chemicals,  and  his 
punishment  was,  as  he  has  since  admitted,  "  com- 
ing to  him." 

No  grudge  appears  to  have  been  borne  by  either 
Edison  or  the  conductor.  The  boy  resumed  his 
work  as  "candy  butcher"  on  the  train  next  day, 
and  no  mention  was  made  of  the  incident.  The 
conductor  felt  that  he  had  done  his  duty  and  he 
forbore  to  "rub  it  in."  Edison  felt  that  Steven- 
son could  at  least  have  waited  until  the  train 
reached  Port  Huron  and  given  him  a  chance  to 
take  away  his  belongings  without  damage,  but  he 
had  too  much  pride  to  ask  for  any  renewal  of  the 
baggage  car  privilege. 

Going  to  his  father,  "Al"  made  a  clean  breast 
of  the  whole  affair,  and  begged  for  the  use  of  a  small 
unused  room  near  the  roof  of  the  house  as  a  work- 
shop. The  evidence  that  fire  was  to  be  feared  made 
his  father  refuse  him,  but  the  boy  compromised 
by  promising  not  to  store  anything  inflammable. 
So  Edison  fitted  up  another  small  workshop,  where 
he  continued  to  print  The  Weekly  Herald  and  to 
make  experiments. 

Mt.  Clemens  was  destined  to  be  a  second  turning 
point  in  the  boy's  fortunes.  The  station  agent, 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  43 

Mr.  J.  U.  Mackenzie,  had  witnessed  the  ignomin- 
ious expulsion  from  the  baggage  car  and  his  sym- 
pathies had  been  with  the  boy.  This  had  increased 
the  friendship  between  the  two,  when  the  event 
happened  which  made  Mackenzie  the  boy's  sworn 
ally.  The  account  of  this  event  which  seems  to 
fit  in  best  with  the  known  facts  is  the  one  given  by 
Mr.  Mackenzie  himself,  and  quoted  by  W.  K.  L. 
Dickson. 

"Edison,  or  'Al,'  as  he  was  then  called,"  said 
Mr.  Mackenzie,  "was  at  this  time  the  newsboy 
of  the  mixed  train,  running  from  Port  Huron  to 
Detroit,  and  returning  daily,  Sundays  excepted. 
He  was  at  this  period  well  on  the  road  to  success, 
and  made  it  a  point  to  leave  at  least  one  dollar 
of  each  day's  earnings  with  his  mother  before 
starting  on  the  following  morning.  Al  had  en- 
deared himself  to  the  station  agents,  operators 
and  their  families  all  along  the  line.  As  the  mixed 
train  did  the  way  freight  work  and  the  shunting 
at  Mt.  Clemens,  it  usually  consumed  not  less 
than  thirty  minutes  in  doing  it,  during  which 
time  Al  secured  new  patrons  for  his  wares,  or 
played  with  my  little  two-and-a-half  year  old 
boy,  Jimmy,  of  whom  he  seemed  very  fond. 

"It  was  at  9 : 30  on  a  lovely  summer  morning. 
The  mixed  train  had  arrived,  leaving  its  passenger 


44  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

and  baggage  car  standing  on  the  main  track  at 
the  north  end  of  the  station  platform,  the  pin 
having  been  pulled  between  the  baggage  and  first 
box  car.  The  train,  of  some  twelve  or  fifteen 
freight  cars,  had  pulled  ahead  and  had  backed  in 
upon  the  freight  house  siding,  had  then  taken  out  a 
box  car  (containing  ten  tons  of  handle  material  for 
Jackson  State  Prison),  and  had  pushed  it  with 
sufficient  momentum  to  reach  the  baggage  car 
without  a  brakeman  controlling  it. 

"Al,  happening  to  turn  at  this  moment,  noticed 
little  Jimmy  on  the  main  track,  throwing  pebbles 
over  his  head  in  the  sunshine,  utterly  unconscious 
of  the  danger  he  was  in.  Al  dashed  his  papers 
and  his  cap  on  the  platform  and  plunged  to  the 
rescue,  risking  his  own  life  to  save  his  little  friend, 
and  throwing  the  child  and  himself  out  of  the  way 
of  the  approaching  box  car.  They  both  landed  face 
down  in  sharp,  fresh  gravel  ballast  with  such  force 
that,  when  rescued,  their  appearance  was  somewhat 
alarming.  Examination,  however,  proved  the  in- 
juries to  be  only  skin  deep. 

"Tommy  Sutherland,  the  train  baggageman, 
who  was  an  eyewitness,  told  me  that  had  Al  been 
a  second  later  he  would  have  lost  a  foot  or  been 
killed,  as  the  wheel  of  the  car  struck  the  heel  of 
his  boot.  I  was  in  the  ticket  office,  and  hearing 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  45 

a  shriek,  ran  out,  in  time  to  see  the  train  hands 
carrying  the  two  boys  to  the  platform." 

The  next  time  they  met,  which  was  a  couple  of 
days  later,  Mackenzie,  who  was  not  rich  and  who 
had  been  racking  his  brains  to  try  and  think  of  some 
way  in  which  he  could  show  his  gratitude,  offered 
to  teach  the  boy  telegraphy.  Edison  jumped  at  the 
chance,  and  twice  a  day,  when  the  train  stopped  at 
Mt.  Clemens  and  was  detained  there,  the  lad  prac- 
tised Morse  with  his  friend  Mackenzie.  A  few  times, 
Sutherland,  the  baggage  man,  offered  to  bring  the 
evening  papers  as  far  as  Mt.  Clemens,  and  then  Al 
was  able  to  give  almost  the  whole  day  to  telegraphy, 
leaving  the  train  on  its  up-trip  at  9.30  and  board- 
ing it  again  on  the  down-trip  in  the  evening. 

At  the  end  of  a  couple  of  weeks,  Edison  deserted 
his  instructor  for  several  days,  going  through  to 
Detroit.  On  his  return,  he  displayed  a  set  of 
telegraph  instruments  he  had  made  with  his  own 
hands  in  the  gun  shop  of  Fisher  &  Long.  In  his 
own  characteristic  way,  he  had  gone  into  the  shop 
and  asked  if  he  might  have  the  use  of  a  bench  and 
tools  for  a  few  days,  his  friend  J.  A.  Roys  vouching 
for  him,  and  telling  the  gun  shop  proprietor  the 
story  of  the  printing-press. 

This  early  period  of  Edison's  life  is  a  wonderful 
tribute  to  the  willingness  of  people  to  help.  If  a 


46  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

boy  is  in  dead  earnest  and  can  convince  others  that 
he  is  worth  while,  he  will  find  thousands  ready  to 
help  him.  The  half-hearted  desire  gets  nowhere. 
Thousands  of  "newsies"  might  want  to  sell  more 
papers,  but  it  took  an  Edison  to  induce  an  editor 
to  give  him  a  thousand  copies  on  trust,  and  to  show 
that  he  had  reason  to  suppose  he  could  dispose  of 
them.  Lots  of  boys  have  set  type  for  fun,  but 
Edison  was  the  first  —  and  almost  the  only  —  per- 
son to  print  a  regular  weekly  newspaper  on  a  mov- 
ing train.  Any  number  of  lads  might  like  the 
privilege  of  using  a  gunsmith's  bench  and  tools,  but 
it  was  the  definiteness  of  purpose  in  Edison  that 
got  him  what  he  wanted.  But  whether  it  be  the 
Grand  Trunk  and  the  earnest  application  for  the 
"candy  butcher"  job,  Storey  and  the  thousand 
papers,  Roys  and  the  printing-press,  the  composi- 
tors and  the  proofs,  the  gunsmith  and  the  bench, 
or  Mackenzie  and  the  telegraph  key,  the  one  fact 
stands  out  that  the  right  sort  of  boy  can  generally 
get  the  help  he  needs,  if  he  needs  it  badly  enough 
and  goes  after  it  hard. 

The  change  of  the  publication  offices  of  the 
Weekly  Herald  from  the  baggage  car  to  the  lad's 
workshop  in  the  home  resulted  disastrously.  As 
young  Edison  was  so  little  at  home,  he  found  it 
almost  impossible  to  get  the  paper  set  up,  and  he 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  47 

entered  into  an  arrangement  with  the  "printer's 
devil' '  of  the  Port  Huron  Commercial  that  he  should 
set  up  the  matter  that  Edison  brought  him,  run  off 
the  paper  and  take  a  certain-  share  of  the  profits. 

The  plan  was  working  well  but  the  new  partner, 
not  knowing  anything  about  the  railroad  end  of 
things,  constantly  disagreed  with  Edison  about 
the  items.  Also,  being  even  younger,  and  lacking 
the  balance  of  the  real  editor,  he  was  anxious  for 
personal  items  of  a  funnier  kind.  He  persuaded 
young  Edison  that  a  sheet  of  this  kind  could  have 
a  large  local  sale,  as  well  as  hold  the  subscribers 
already  listed,  and  the  Weekly  Herald  gave  place 
to  Paul  Pry. 

The  few  remaining  numbers  of  Paul  Pry  show 
that  the  influence  of  the  new  partner  was  a  great 
gain  to  Edison,  so  far  as  printing  was  concerned. 
The  paper  was  more  interestingly  written,  also. 
This  was  the  pitfall  into  which  it  fell.  Like  many 
other  would-be  great  writers,  the  editors  of  Paul 
Pry  tried  to  be  funny.  But  —  as  the  keeper  of  an 
isolated  lighthouse  once  pathetically  remarked  of 
his  partner  —  "a  funny  man  needs  lots  of  room!" 
You  can't  be  funny  in  a  local  paper,  for  some  one 
is  going  to  be  hurt. 

After  the  little  journal  had  been  running  for  a 
few  weeks,  an  indignant  subscriber  appeared  at 


48  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

the  office  and  asked  for  the  editor-in-chief.  He 
had  been  lampooned  in  the  Paul  Pry  and  wanted 
satisfaction.  As  he  was  about  six  feet  high,  and 
broad  in  proportion-,  Edison's  boy  partner  was 
glad  to  be  able  to  say  that  the  editor  was  out. 
Unfortunately,  subscriber  and  editor  chanced  to 
meet,  an  hour  later,  close  to  the  St.  Clair  River. 
Whereupon  the  subscriber  took  the  editor  by  his 
collar  and  his  waist  and  heaved  him,  neck  and 
crop,  into  the  water.  Edison  swam  to  shore,  and, 
wet,  but  otherwise  undisturbed,  discontinued  the 
publication  of  Paul  Pry  and  bade  good-by  to 
journalism  forever. 

Although  Edison  has  at  various  times  suffered 
at  the  hands  of  newspaper  men,  he  has  a  very  high 
regard  for  the  American  press  as  a  whole. 

"  Looking  over  the  whole  country,"  he  is  quoted 
by  F.  A.  Jones  as  saying,  "I  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  greatest  factor  in  our 
progress  has  been  the  newspaper  press.  When 
one  wants  to  do  a  thing  the  newspapers  take  it  up. 
Everybody  reads  the  newspapers,  everybody  knows 
the  situation,  and  we  all  act  together." 

On  another  occasion  he  said : 

"  To  let  the  world  know  through  type  who  and 
what  and  where  you  are,  and  what  you  have  that 
this  great  world  wants,  is  the  secret  of  success,  and 


THE  SAD  END  OF  PAUL  PRY  49 

the  printing-press  is  its  mightiest  machine  to  that 
end." 

Time,  as  has  so  often  been  said,  has  its  curious 
revenges.  The  editor  of  the  Paul  Pry  has  often 
been  repaid  in  kind  by  humorous  stories  about  him- 
self  that  have  been  annoying.  One  of  the  most 
amusing  of  these,  and  one  which  must  have  given 
huge  joy  to  the  angry  subscriber  of  the  little  Port 
Huron  sheet  if  he  lived  long  enough  to  see  it,  was 
the  fake  story  of  the  patent  shirt,  first  published 
about  the, time  of  the  success  of  the  phonograph. 

"I  laugh  at  the  story  now,"  said  the  inventor, 
once,  talking  about  it,  "but  at  the  time  I  didn't 
think  it  so  amusing.  One  of  the  ' boys'  [news- 
paper men]  came  down  here  one  day,  and  not  being 
able  to  see  me  or  to  get  any  startling  information 
from  any  of  my  associates,  he  went  home,  probably 
feeling  somewhat  aggrieved,  and  wrote  up  a  story 
of  his  own  invention. 

"He  declared,  in  a  very  lucid  and  descriptive 
way  —  I've  got  to  admit  that  the  story  was  well 
written  —  that  I  was  shortly  bringing  out  a  new 
and  very  ingenious  shirt  which  would  last  the  ordi- 
nary man  twelve  months,  or  longer,  if  he  were 
economical.  The  front  of  the  shirt,  he  declared, 
was  made  up  of  365  excessively  thin  layers  of  a 
fibrous  material  —  supposed  only  to  be  known  to 


50  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

me  and  one  other  of  my  associates.  All  that  the 
wearer  had  to  do  when  he  put  the  garment  on, 
each  morning,  was  to  tear  off  one  of  the  layers,  when 
the  front  would  shine  forth  in  all  its  pristine  spot- 
lessness  and  he  would  practically  have  a  new  shirt. 
Oh,  it  was  a  good  yarn ! 

"The  writer  went  on  to  say  that  I  wore  one  of 
these  shirts  myself  and  that  I  considered  the  inven- 
tion the  biggest  thing  I  had  yet  accomplished. 

"Well,  it  seemed  to  be  too  good  a  story  to  let 
go.  It  was  copied  into  a  couple  of  hundred  papers 
in  the  States,  and  from  there  went  broadcast  all 
over  the  world.  Every  race  of  people,  from  China- 
men to  South  Africans,  seemed  desirous  of  getting 
these  shirts.  Letters  began  to  pour  in,  many  of 
them  containing  drafts  and  checks.  All  these  had 
to  be  returned.  At  first  I  gave  orders  that  a  polite 
form  of  reply  should  be  sent.  But  we  were  getting 
swamped,  and  I  wouldn't  spend  thousands  of  dol- 
lars on  postage.  Then  agents  began  to  pester  us. 

"I  guess  for  more  than  a  year  these  orders  for 
'Edison  Patent  Shirts'  poured  in,  until  at  last  the 
public  began  to  realize  that  it  had  been  hoaxed, 
and  turned  its  attention  to  something  else.  But 
if  I  could  have  got  hold  of  the  young  man  who 
wrote  it  up,  I  guess  he  wouldn't  have  wanted  a  shirt 
or  anything  else  on  his  back  for  several  weeks !" 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  CRACK  "  LIGHTNING-SLINGER  " 

"Dox;  dash,  dot,  dot;  dot,  dot;  dot,  dot,  dot; 
dot,  (space),  dot;  dash,  dot." 

After  all  the  years,  this  combination  of  tele- 
graphic symbols  spells  to  the  old-time  operator  the 
name  of  one  of  the  most  famous  men  that  ever 
clicked  Morse  over  a  key.  Young  Edison,  seiz- 
ing the  advantage  that  had  been  given  him  by 
his  friend  the  station  agent  at  Mt.  Clemens,  soon 
became  sufficiently  expert  to  feel  that  he  could 
fill  a  night  operator's  place.  He  had  friends  all 
along  the  line,  and  when  the  post  of  night  operator 
became  vacant  in  Port  Huron,  his  home  town, 
young  Edison  had  little  difficulty  in  securing  the 
place,  at  a  salary  of  twenty-five  dollars  a  month. 

So  far  as  money  was  concerned,  this  was  a  dis- 
tinct drop  for  "Al"  Edison,  but  he  felt  that  in 
it  there  was  more  opportunity  than  in  his  work 
as  "candy  butcher."  His  father,  also,  was  doing 
well,  so  that  his  earnings  were  not  needed  by  the 
family.  As  night  operator,  his  duties  were  very 

Si 


52  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

light,  merely  to  record  the  passing  of  trains. 
Accordingly,  Edison  spent  all  day  in  his  workshop 
at  home,  experimenting  on  things  telegraphic  and 
chemical.  He  could  not  be  persuaded  to  sleep  in 
the  daytime,  and  consequently,  when  he  came  on 
duty,  was  always  heavy  and  drowsy.  The  result 
was  that  the  work  was  thoroughly  unsatisfactory, 
and  he  would  have  been  dismissed  a  dozen  times 
over  if  the  train  dispatcher  had  not  known  him 
for  years  and  liked  him  well. 

After  one  particularly  bad  example  of  neglect, 
Edison  got  into  such  a  pickle  that  he  realized  his 
job  depended  upon  more  care.  He  bought  an 
alarm  clock  with  a  rattle  like  the  roll  of  musketry, 
and  a  tin  pan,  set  the  clock  for  two  minutes  before 
the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  next  train,  put  the 
clock  on  the  upturned  tin  pan  and  went  to  sleep. 
When  the  alarm  woke  him  —  it  would  almost 
have  wakened  a  deaf  mute !  —  he  sent  his  message, 
set  his  clock  for  the  next  train  and  went  to  sleep 
again. 

This  worked  well  for  a  few  nights,  for  the  trains 
were  usually  on  time,  but  a  couple  of  weeks  later 
one  of  the  trains  was  late  and  set  back  the  whole 
schedule.  Edison,  who  happened  to  be  particularly 
sleepy  that  night,  paid  no  attention  to  the  train, 
but  as  soon  as  the  alarm  roused  him,  he  reported 


THE  CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       53 

that  the  train  had  passed  and  went  to  sleep  again. 
At  the  usual  time  for  the  next  train  he  did  the 
same  thing,  and  so  on  through  the  whole  night. 

Then  a  storm  broke !  The  train  dispatcher  sent 
for  him  and  pointed  out  the  danger  to  life  that  was 
caused  by  his  neglect.  He  showed  the  boy  the 
heinousness  of  sleeping  while  on  duty.  Then  — 
and  here  was  his  mistake  —  instead  of  putting 
the  boy  on  honor,  he  made  it  imperative  for  him 
to  signal  the  letter  'A',  or  "dot,  dash"  every  half 
hour.  Edison  was  entirely  satisfied  with  the  plan, 
and  being  eager  to  keep  his  position,  agreed  to 
send  the  message  regularly. 

The  very  next  night  the  plan  was  instituted,  and, 
so  far  as  the  dispatcher  was  concerned,  it  worked 
admirably,  for  it  was  impossible  for  Edison  to  get 
a  satisfactory  nap  in  the  intervals.  The  boy  was 
less  satisfied,  for  he  could  see  that  he  would  have 
to  give  up  his  experimenting  during  the  day  or  else 
lose  his  job.  When  he  reported  for  duty  the  next 
evening,  his  face  wore  that  expression  of  satisfied 
innocence  which  an  office  boy  carries  when  on  his 
way  to  the  baseball  diamond  to  attend  — "his 
grandmother's  funeral." 

As  soon  as  the  office  was  clear  and  Edison  was 
alone,  he  opened  a  small  box  which  he  had  brought 
down  to  the  station  and  took  out  some  coils  of 


54  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

wire,  a  couple  of  wooden  pegs,  and  a  few  tools. 
He  busied  himself  for  an  hour  or  so,  connected  to 
the  sending-key  of  the  telegraph  and  to  the  clock 
the  small  instrument  he  had  made,  and  then  leaned 
back  in  his  chair  to  watch  the  outcome  when  the 
half-hour  was  reached.  At  the  half-hour,  exactly, 
a  little  wooden  lever  fell,  sending  an  exact  imita- 
tion of  the  Morse  "dot,  dash"  and  immediately 
afterwards  another  lever  fell  and  closed  the  circuit. 

Edison's  smile  grew  broader,  but  he  waited  for 
the  next  half-hour  cycle.  When,  at  that  time, 
the  little  instrument  again  performed  its  duties 
successfully,  his  smile  broadened  until  it  couldn't 
get  any  broader,  and,  so  smiling,  he  fell  asleep  and 
slept  the  sleep  of  the  ingenious,  if  not  of  the  just. 

So  exact  was  this  mechanical  watcher  that 
Edison's  reputation  was  being  reestablished  and 
the  train  dispatcher  took  great  credit  to  himself 
for  having  designed  a  plan  which  was  teaching 
the  young  operator  the  value  of  punctuality  and 
attention  to  detail.  Even  the  ingenuity  of  an 
Edison,  however,  cannot  forever  take  the  place  of 
attention  to  duty.  It  happened  that  one  night, 
while  the  dispatcher  was  making  his  rounds,  he 
found  himself  only  one  station  away  from  Port 
Huron,  and  after  getting  the  usual  signal  from 
Edison,  it  occurred  to  him  to  call  up  the  operator 


THE  CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       55 

and  have  a  chat.  He  threw  open  the  key  and 
called.  There  was  no  reply.  For  ten  minutes 
he  called  the  station,  at  first  expectantly,  then 
angrily,  and  at  last  with  alarm,  for  he  began  to  feel 
sure  that  something  dreadful  must  have  hap- 
pened. At  last  he  gave  up  the  key,  and  boarding 
a  hand-car,  he  started  off  for  the  next  station  as 
hard  as  he  could  pump. 

On  reaching  Port  Huron  he  hurried  across  the 
platform  and  glanced  fearfully  through  the  office 
window,  half-expecting  to  find  Edison  unconscious 
on  the  floor.  Instead,  a  peaceful  scene  met  his 
eyes.  The  telegraph  operator,  entirely  uncon- 
scious of  scrutiny,  was  lying  across  two  chairs 
with  a  pillow  and  a  coverlet  and  all  the  evidences 
of  a  regular  sleeping  arrangement.  The  train 
dispatcher  was  about  to  burst  into  the  room  when 
it  occurred  to  him  to  wait  and  see  what  new  scheme 
the  boy  had  invented  for  being  wakened  at  the  half- 
hour  interval. 

But  when  the  hands  of  the  clock  pointed  to  the 
required  hour,  Edison  continued  to  sleep  as  peace- 
fully as  before  and  the  alarm  clock  made  no  sound. 
Puzzled  beyond  words,  the  dispatcher  watched 
for  a  moment  or  two  longer;  then,  in  a  way  that 
seemed  like  magic,  a  lever  operated  by  a  small 
instrument  on  the  table  opened  the  circuit,  the 


56  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

instrument  "got  busy"  and  sent  the  required 
"dot,  dash"  over  the  wire.  Another  lever  closed 
the  circuit,  and  lo  and  behold!  there  was  the  me- 
chanical evidence  that  the  operator  had  been  awake 
and  on  the  job,  while  the  train  dispatcher  stood  by 
the  window  and  watched  the  "operator"  sleeping 
profoundly. 

In  record  time  Edison  was  yanked  up  and  stood 
on  his  feet,  while  the  dispatcher  poured  into  his 
half-awakened  ears  a  harangue  which  brought  the 
young  inventor  to  his  senses  with  a  jump.  Lan- 
guage was  picturesque  on  western  railroads  in 
those  days,  and  Edison  had  no  difficulty  in  under- 
standing that  he  was  out  of  a  job  and  that  the 
quicker  he  cleared  out  of  that  office  the  better ! 
He  did,  only  trying  to  justify  himself  with  the  state- 
ment that  nothing  serious  had  occurred  as  a  result 
of  his  sleeping  to  justify  his  dismissal. 

His  next  offense,  however,  was  more  serious, 
and  to  this  day  Edison  himself  speaks  of  it  a  little 
shamefacedly.  After  having  been  dismissed  from 
Port  Huron,  the  young  fellow  was  out  of  work  for 
some  weeks,  but  finally  secured  a  position  in  Sarnia, 
Ontario,  a  Canadian  point,  also  on  the  Grand 
Trunk  Railroad.  This  was  a  day  position,  and 
consequently  there  was  not  the  same  opportunity 
to  shirk  work.  But  no  routine,  no  matter  how 


THE  CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       57 

close  or  detailed,  sufficed  to  interest  Edison  for 
long;  his  mind  craved  the  grappling  with  new 
problems.  Accordingly,  even  at  his  work,  he 
usually  had  a  sheet  of  paper  and  pencil  beside 
him  on  which  he  would  work  out  problems  which 
he  desired  to  submit  to  experiment  at  a  more  propi- 
tious time. 

On  one  of  these  occasions,  while  extremely 
interested  in  a  question  which  afterwards  he  made 
useful  in  his  quadruplex  telegraph  invention,  he 
allowed  a  train  which  he  had  been  ordered  to  stop, 
to  run  through  his  station.  As  this  was  definite 
negligence,  the  seriousness  of  the  matter  flashed 
on  Edison  the  second  that  the  train  had  passed, 
and  he  rushed  out  on  the  platform  in  a  vain  hope 
to  attract  attention.  It  was,  of  course,  too  late, 
and  the  boy  ran  down  the  line  with  his  ears  strained 
and  his  heart  almost  bursting  from  his  ribs,  every 
second  fearing  to  hear  the  crash  of  an  awful  acci- 
dent. Fortunately  the  locomotive  engineers  heard 
each  others'  whistles  and  the  accident  was  averted 
by  a  narrow  margin. 

Edison  was  at  once  summoned  to  the  office  of 
the  general  manager,  W.  J.  Spicer,  a  man  noted  for 
his  severity. 

"Young  man,"  said  Mr.  Spicer,  "this  offense  of 
yours  is  a  very  serious  one,  and  I  think  I  shall 


58  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

make  an  example  of  you.  I  can  send  you  to  the 
penitentiary  far  five  years  and  — " 

"Just  at  this  minute,"  continued  Edison  when 
telling  the  story,  "two  English  swells  came  in  and 
Mr.  Spicer  rose  to  greet  them.  They  engaged  him 
in  conversation  and  I  seized  the  chance  to  slip 
quietly  out  of  the  door.  I  headed  for  the  freight 
depot  where  I  found  a  freight  train  about  to  start 
for  Sarnia.  I  knew  the  conductor,  told  him  I'd 
been  up  to  Toronto  on  a  holiday  excursion,  and 
asked  him  to  run  me  back  to  my  station.  He 
agreed.  I  stayed  on  that  freight  train  right 
through,  but  my  pulse  didn't  get  down  to  normal 
while  I  was  in  Canada,  until  the  ferryboat  between 
Sarnia  and  Port  Huron  landed  me  in  the  United 
States." 

At  Port  Huron  he  applied  for  a  job  to  the  Western 
Union  Company  and  they  took  him  on.  He  was 
there  only  a  few  months,  however,  leaving  because 
of  a  dispute  with  the  manager  over  a  bonus  which 
was  to  have  been  given  for  "  taking  "  an  important 
presidential  message  to  Congress. 

Hearing  that  the,  post  of  night  operator  at 
Stratford,  Ontario,  was  vacant,  he  applied  for  the 
position  and  secured  it  without  delay.  The  pay, 
however,  was  but  twenty-five  dollars  a  month, 
scarcely  enough  to  live  on,  and  Edison  decided 


THE  CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       59 

that  it  was  not  worth  his  while  to  stay  there,  the 
more  so  as  he  had  no  conveniences  for  his  private 
experiments.  He  threw  up  the  position  and  started 
off  for  Indianapolis,  where  it  was  possible  to  secure 
more  important  posts.  He  stopped  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  Western  Union  Company  in  the 
street  and  asked  for  an  interview.  The  latter, 
Mr.  John  F.  Wallick,  favorably  impressed,  told 
him  to  come  in  the  next  morning.  Edison  did 
so,  and  answered  the  questions  that  were  asked  him 
so  promptly,  and  with  such  an  evident  understand- 
ing of  the  principles  of  *  telegraphy ,  that  he  was 
given  a  position  in  the  Union  Station  at  once. 
Here  the  pay  was  fair,  and  the  work  heavy.  Being 
only  routine,  however,  it  did  not  suit  Edison,  and 
he  petitioned  for  the  " press  wire."  In  this,  how- 
ever, he  was  unable  to  make  good,  and  a  few  months 
later  he  was  suspended  for  delay  on  the  wire  and 
transferred  to  Cincinnati. 

Frequently,  in  later  years,  Edison  has  expressed 
his  good  fortune  that  the  work  of  a  telegraph 
operator  should  have  been  the  line  he  took  up 
when  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  earn  his  living 
during  the  years  best  fitted  for  acquiring  knowledge. 
He  has  since  told  the  story  of  the  happenings  in  the 
telegraph  office  in  Cincinnati  —  on  one  of  the  most 
dramatic  nights  in  American  history. 


60  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"One  night/'  he  is  quoted  by  W.  K.  L.  Dickson 
as  having  said,  "I  noticed  an  immense  crowd 
gathering  outside  a  newspaper  office  across  the 
street.  I  called  the  attention  of  the  other  opera- 
tors to  the  crowd,  and  growing  curious,  we  sent 
a  messenger  boy  to  find  out  the  cause  of  the  excite- 
ment. He  came  back  in  a  hurry,  dashed  up  the 
stairs  two  steps  at  a  time,  and  just  as  he  reached 
the  door  of  the  office,  shouted, 

1(1  Lincoln's  been  shot!' 

"We  had  expected  some  local  news,  but  just  as 
soon  as  we  realized  that 'this  dispatch  must  have 
come  through  our  office,  we  glanced  from  one  to 
the  other  to  see  who  had  taken  the  news  and  kept 
so  quiet  about  it.  All  faces  were  blank  and  every 
man  said  he  had  not  taken  a  word  about  the  shoot- 
ing. 

"'Look  over  your  files,'  said  the  boss  to  the 
man  handling  the  press  stuff. 

"For  a  few  minutes  we  waited  in  suspense,  and 
then  the  man  held  up  a  sheet  of  'flimsy'  containing 
a  short  account  of  the  assassination  of  the  Presi- 
dent. The  operator  had  worked  so  mechanically 
that  he  had  handled  the  news  without  the  slight- 
est perception  of  its  significance.  I  think,"  Edison 
concluded,  "that  I  must  have  often  been  thinking 
up  problems  while  I  was  at  work,  although,  before 


THE  CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       6 1 

I  quit,  I  was  able  to  'take'  any  stuff  they  liked  to 
send  along." 

The  suspension  from  the  office  at  Indianapolis 
was  a  great  shock  to  Edison's  pride,  for  he  realized 
that  it  was  not  due  to  his  mind  being  occupied 
with  other  things,  but  solely  to  the  fact  that  there 
were  more  rapid  operators  than  himself.  He 
buckled  down  to  his  work  in  earnest,  and 
" subbed"  for  the  night  men  every  chance  he  got, 
once  in  a  while  managing  to  get  a  chance  for  an 
hour  or  so  on  the  "press  wire"  during  a  slack 
period  of  the  night.  This  was  the  cause  of  his 
promotion. 

Coming  down  to  "sub"  one  night,  he  found  the 
entire  night  staff  off  on  a  spree,  and  peeling  off  his 
coat,  the  youth  took  the  press  report  as  best  he 
could,  working  alone  until  morning.  The  very 
next  day  his  salary  was  nearly  doubled  and  he 
was  given  the  Louisville  wire,  one  of  the  best  in 
the  office.  Fortunately  for  Edison,  the  "sender" 
at  the  Louisville  end  was  one  of  the  best  in  the 
country  and  at  the  same  time  both  smooth  and 
patient.  This  made  things  easy  for  Edison,  and 
he  soon  got  up  speed  enough  to  be  able  to  handle 
the  "press  wire"  with  comparative  ease. 

The  manager  of  the  Cincinnati  office,  however, 
was  somewhat  of  a  stickler  for  appearance,  and 


62  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

nothing  could  make  Edison  careful.  He  spent 
all  his  money  on  books  and  appliances,  and  he 
spent  nearly  all  his  spare  time  in  reading,  with  the 
result  that  one  day  he  again  found  himself  out  of 
a  position.  By  this  time,  however,  he  was  one  of 
the  fastest  operators  the  Western  Union  had  on 
its  payroll  and  one  who  was  the  despair  of  his 
rivals  because  of  the  ease  with  which  he  was  able 
to  "take"  or  "transmit."  Francis  A.  Jones,  in 
his  biographical  appreciation  of  Edison,  quotes  a 
Tennessee  man  who  was  an  operator  in  the  West- 
ern Union  office  at  Memphis  at  the  time  the  future 
Wizard  applied  for  a  job. 

"He  came  walking  into  the  office  one  morning," 
^  says  this  anonymous  writer,  "looking  like  a  veri- 
table hayseed.  He  wore  a  hickory  shirt,  a  pair 
of  butternut  pants  tucked  into  the  tops  of  boots 
which  looked  too  large  for  him  and  which,  evi- 
dently, were  guiltless  of  blacking. 

"  'Where's  the  boss ? '  was  his  query  as  he  glanced 
around  the  office. 

"No  one  replied  at  once,  and  he  repeated  the 
question. 

"The  manager  asked  what  he  could  do  for  him, 
and  the  future  great  one  proceeded  to  strike  him 
for  a  job.  Business  was  rushing  and  the  office 
was  two  men  short,  so  almost  any  kind  of  a  light- 


THE  CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"        63 

ning-slinger  was  welcome.  He  was  assigned  to  a 
desk  for  a  trial  and  a  fusillade  of  winks  went  the 
rounds  of  the  room,  for  the  new  arrival  had  been 
put  on  the  St.  Louis  wire,  the  hardest  in  the  office. 
At  the  end  of  the  line  was  an  operator  who  was 
chain  lightning  and  knew  it. 

"  Edison  had  hardly  got  seated  before  St.  Louis 
called.  The  newcomer  responded,  and  St.  Louis 
started  on  a  long  report  which  he  pumped  in  like 
a  house  afire.  Edison  threw  his  leg  over  the  arm 
of  the  chair,  leisurely  transferred  a  wad  of  spruce 
gum  from  his  pocket  to  his  mouth,  took  up  a  pen, 
examined  it  critically,  and  started  in  about  fifty 
words  behind.  He  didn't  stay  there  long,  though. 
St.  Louis  let  out  another  link  of  speed  and  still 
another,  and  the  instrument  on  Edison's  table 
hummed  like  an  old-style  Singer  sewing  machine. 
Every  man  in  the  office  left  his  desk  and  gathered 
around  the  jay  to  see  what  he  was  doing  with  that 
•electric  cyclone. 

"Well,  sir,  he  was  right  on  the  word  and  taking 
it  down  in  the  prettiest  copper-plate  hand  you 
ever  saw,  even  crossing  his  *tV  and  dotting  his 
Ts'  and  punctuating  with  as  much  care  as  a 
man  editing  telegraph  for  rat  printers.  St.  Louis 
got  tired  by  and  by  and  began  to  slow  down.  Then 
Edison  opened  the  key  and  said : 


64  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"'St.  Louis!  Hello,  there!  Change  off,  and 
send  with  the  other  foot ! ' 

"Well,  sir,  that  broke  St.  Louis  all  up.  He  had 
been  rawhiding  Memphis  for  a  long  time,  and  we 
were  terribly  sore.  To  have  a  man  in  our  office 
who  could  walk  all  over  him  made  us  feel  like  a  man 
whose  horse  had  won  the  Derby.  We  took  him 
out  and  gave  him  a  dinner,  but  we  never  really 
succeeded  in  getting  the  look  of  the  slick  operator 
into  him." 

The  Memphis  office  was  full  of  a  wild  crowd,  and 
after  a  particularly  riotous  night,  the  manager 
came  in  and  dismissed  several  of  them,  including 
Edison,  though  he  had  taken  little  part  in  the  fun. 
He  was  without  funds,  and  he  actually  tramped 
all  the  way  to  Nashville  and  then  to  Louisville 
before  he  found  another  job.  Realizing  that  to  get 
the  full  benefit  of  his  skill  in  telegraphy  he  must 
write  as  rapidly  as  any  one  could  send,  the  young 
fellow  developed  a  highly  artistic  "  back-hand " 
which  he  could  do  at  a  speed  of  fifty  words  a 
minute,  or  as  fast  as  a  Morse  operator  could  send. 
As  this  was  before  the  days  of  typewriters,  this 
last  ability  was  the  crowning  cap  of  his  efficiency.- 

Experiments,  as  ever,  were  his  bane.  As  he 
spent  on  apparatus  all  that  he  could  earn,  Edison 
begrudged  buying  sulphuric  acid,  which  he  needed 


THE   CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       65 

for  his  tests,  when  there  was  a  lot  of  it  in  the  office 
where  he  worked.  One  night,  while  he  was  en- 
gaged in  filling  one  of  his  own  vials  with  acid 
from  the  general  stock,  the  carboy  tipped  over 
and  fell  on  the  floor.  The  acid  ran  through  the 
floor  and  the  ceiling  of  a  richly  furnished  directors' 
room  of  a  bank,  doing  great  damage.  Edison 
was  immediately  discharged,  both  because  of  the 
damage  and  because  he  was  not  expected  to  help 
himself  to  office  supplies. 

His  good  judgment  in  spending  time  in  develop- 
ing his  handwriting  now  showed  itself.  Having 
written  to  a  friend  in  Boston,  by  name  Milton 
Adams,  to  see  if  there  was  any  chance  for  a  job, 
Adams  showed  the  letter  to  Mr.  G.  F.  Milliken. 
The  curious  handwriting  immediately  attracted 
the  manager's  attention,  and  on  learning  from 
Adams  that  Edison  could  write  that  hand  as 
rapidly  as  an  operator  could  send,  he  was  told  to 
write  to  his  friend  and  he  would  be  given  a  chance. 

Edison  strolled  in,  looking  as  untidy  as  ever, 
but  Milliken  was  a  man  of  judgment,  the  very 
first  to  recognize  in  the  young  telegraph  operator 
the  spark  of  genius,  and  he  overlooked  many  things 
which  would  have  been  cause  for  dismissal  in 
another  man.  He  was  hardly  ever  on  time,  and 
often  would  arrive  at  the  office  half  an  hour  or 


66  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

even  an  hour  late,  owing  to  his  intense  concentra- 
tion on  some  problem  which  he  had  been  attack- 
ing that  day  in  his  little  workshop.  But  the  days 
of  his  life  as  a  telegraph  operator  were  drawing 
to  a  close,  for  the  spirit  of  the  inventor  possessed 
him  more  and  more,  and,  when  he  left  Boston 
after  a  couple  of  years  under  Milliken,  he  had 
handled  the  key  for  the  last  time  but  one. 

Twenty-six  years  later,  at  the  Electrical  Exhibi- 
tion held  at  New  York,  when  Edison's  name  was 
honored  throughout  the  United  States,  he  was 
asked  to  receive  the  message  to  be  sent  around 
the  world  by  Chauncey  M.  Depew.  In  order  to 
test  his  ability,  he  stepped  into  the  telegraph  room. 
As  the  familiar  clatter  and  click  of  the  instruments 
struck  his  ears,  he  tossed  up  his  head. 

" Sounds  good,"  he  remarked.  "Good  man  at 
the  other  end?"  he  queried  as  he  sat  down  and 
reached  over  for  some  telegraph  blanks. 

"Pretty  fair,"  answered  the  manager. 

Click  —  click  —  beg'an  the  instrument,  and  Edi- 
son half  wheeled  round  in  his  chair  to  nod  approval. 

"Good  Morse,"  he  said,  "very  easy  to  read. 
I  doubt  if  I  can  put  it  down  the  way  I  used  to, 
though." 

He  struck  a  match  and  proceeded  to  light  one 
of  his  big  cigars,  writing  steadily  with  the  other 


THE   CRACK  "LIGHTNING-SLINGER"       67 

hand.  He  took  the  screed  down  without  a  flaw 
and  with  apparent  ease,  and  then,  to  test  his  send- 
ing ability,  turned  loose  on  the  man  at  the  other 
end,  repeating  the  message. 

"  I  think  I  could  receive  or  send  if  I  lived  to  be  a 
thousand,"  said  the  inventor,  leaning  back  in  his 
chair.  "I  don't  believe  a  man  would  ever  forget 
it.  It  read  just  like  copperplate,  but  it  kept  me 
scratching  to  get  it  down." 


CHAPTER  V 

"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!" 

IT  is  undeniably  true  that  Edison's  career  as  an 
inventor  began  while  he  was  still  a  tiny  toddler  — 
has  not  the  story  of  the  goose's  eggs  been  told  ?  — 
but  a  turning  point  in  his  career  is  marked  by  the 
granting  of  his  first  patent.  It  is  characteristic 
that  this  should  be  a  device  of  value  to  the  state. 
Just  as,  at  the  height  of  his  career,  Edison  was 
willing  to  give  his  counsel  to  the  national  defense 
of  the  United  States  in  a  military  fashion,  so,  in 
his  youth,  he  wished  to  make  his  inventiveness 
of  service  to  political  and  legislative  life.  Both 
bespeak  the  patriot. 

This  first  patent  of  the  great  inventor's  was  a 
vote-recording  machine.  Edison,  on  the  press 
wire,  had  taken  many  an  account  of  an  election  or 
an  important  vote  in  Congress,  and  he  knew  how 
awkwardly  this  was  done  and  with  how  many 
delays. 

The  "vote-recorder"  was  a  complete  system, 
arranged  so  that  it  might  be  attached  to  a  switch 

68 


"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!"  69 

on  the  desk  of  every  member-  of  a  legislative  body. 
When  a  question  came  up  for  vote,  the  member, 
by  moving  the  switch  either  to  the  right  or  the 
left,  could  register  his  vote  on  the  machine  at  the 
clerk's  desk.  The  paper  on  which  the  vote  was 
recorded  was  chemically  prepared,  and  when  the 
member  moved  the  switch  and  closed  the  circuit, 
an  iron  roller  passed  over  the  paper,  under  which 
was  the  type  signifying  the  member's  name. 
Whenever  the  type  came  in  contact  with  the  chemi- 
cally prepared  paper,  it  turned  it  a  dark  brown, 
thus  practically  printing  the  name  on  the  roll  of 
paper.  An  indicator  registered  the  number  of 
votes  "for"  and  "against,"  thus  insuring  accuracy, 
giving  a  permanent  record,  and  counting  the  votes 
instantaneously. 

Edison  took  a  trip  to  Washington  and  showed 
the  recorder  to  several  Congressmen  who  were 
on  important  committees.  One  of  the  most 
prominent,  after  examining  the  machine  closely, 
said  to  him, 

"Young  man,  so  far  as  I  can  tell,  that's  a  mighty 
ingenious  little  instrument  you've  got  there  and 
it  seems  to  work  well.  You  couldn't  monkey 
with  a  thing  like  that  if  you  wanted  to.  That's 
what's  the  trouble  with  it.  If  everything  was 
on  the  square,  and  no  one  was  trying  to  put  any- 


70  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

thing  over,  that  machine  would  be  a  big  help  and 
save  a  lot  of  time.  But  it  won't  do." 

"Why  not?"  asked  Edison,  naturally  enough. 

"Because  there's  got  to  be  a  chance  to  filibuster 
and  delay,  sometimes.  Quite  often  a  piece  of 
bad  legislation  comes  up  unexpectedly,  and  if 
the  men  who  want  it  could  railroad  it  through, 
there'd  be  no  chance  of  setting  things  right  again. 
That  machine  of  yours  is  just  about  the  last  thing 
we  want  here.  You've  got  the  right  idea  for  an 
ideal  state  —  but  this  isn't  idealism,  this  is  politics. 
Take  the  thing  away." 

"It  broke  me  all  up,"  said  Edison,  when  he 
told  the  story  afterwards,  "because  I  knew  the 
machine  was  a  good  one  and  I  had  counted  on  its 
bringing  me  in  some  money.  But  that  was  a 
good  solid  lesson  to  me.  Right  there  and  then 
I  said  to  myself  that  I  wouldn't  ever  put  in  time 
trying  to  invent  something  that  wouldn't  sell,  or, 
at  least,  that  wasn't  of  general  good  to  the  com- 
munity. And,  except  for  a  few  things  which 
just  happened  into  my  mind  —  '  scratches '  I  call 
them  —  I  have  pretty  well  kept  that  vow." 

Up  to  this  time,  it  must  be  admitted,  Edison 
had  not  "found  himself."  Nothing  saved  him 
but  the  fact  that  telegraph  operators  were  scarce 
in  that  time  of  the  rapid  extension  of  the  telegraph, 


"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!"  71 

for,  though  a  good  operator,  he  was  a  poor  em- 
ployee. Milliken's  confidence  in  him,  however, 
encouraged  his  ambitions  as  an  inventor,  and 
though  F.  L.  Pope,  patent  adviser  of  the  Western 
Union  Company,  after  a  trial,  decided  that  his 
duplex  system  was  still  far  from  perfect,  he  had 
held  out  hopes. 

At  this  point  Edison  took  the  bull  by  the  horns. 
Not  with  any  return  of  his  shiftless  and  wandering 
habits,  but  with  a  definite  objective  point,  he  re- 
signed his  position  in  Boston  and  came  to  New 
York.  Sink  or  swim,  he  was  going  to  make  the 
world  see  the  value  of  his  ideas.  He  had  no 
money  —  scarcely  enough  to  pay  two  weeks' 
board,  and  the  " inventing  business"  is  one  that 
takes  a  lot  of  capital. 

At  last,  at  long  last,  Fortune  smiled  directly 
upon  him.  The  wheel  of  Chance  swung  his  way. 
Walking  along  Wall  Street  one  morning,  he  entered 
the  head  office  of  the  Law  Gold  Recorder.  The 
Recorder  —  which  was  the  father  of  the  stock 
ticker  —  was  an  electrical  device  which  regis- 
tered the  fluctuation  in  the  price  of  gold,  in  much 
the  same  way  that  the  stock  ticker  to-day  regis- 
ters the  rise  and  fall  of  the  prices  of  stocks.  It 
was  much  mor^  primitive  in  its  make,  but  it 
worked. 


72  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

On  this  particular  morning,  the  office  was  in 
an  uproar.  There  had  been  a  general  breakdown 
of  the  system,  —  a  matter  of  fairly  frequent  oc- 
currence—  gold  was  dear,  minutes  were  flying 
fast  and  excitement  was  high.  Mr.  Law  was 
standing  by  the  broken-down  machine  with  half 
a  dozen  of  his  most  expert  workmen,  all  trying 
to  locate  the  trouble. 

Suddenly  Edison,  who  had  been  watching 
closely,  piped  up. 

"I  don't  see  any  particular  trouble  there." 

"Why?"  asked  Law  quickly. 

"I  think  I  can  fix  it  up,  right  away,"  the  young 
electrician  said  modestly. 

"Jump  in  and  see  what  you  can  do,"  was  the 
immediate  answer. 

Edison  walked  forward  with  one  hand  in  his 
pocket,  the  other  holding  a  small  pair  of  tweezers. 
Without  even  troubling  to  take  his  left  hand  out 
of  his  pocket,  he  removed  a  loose  contact  spring 
which  had  become  displaced  and  which  had  fallen 
between  the  wheels.  Instantly  the  instruments 
worked  as  readily  as  before. 

For  a  minute  or  two,  Law  watched  young 
Edison. 

"Clever  machine,  that,"  he  said,  to  draw  him 
into  conversation. 


"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!"  73 

"Ye-es,"  the  inventor  answered  dubiously. 

''Don't  you  think  so?" 

"In  some  ways,"  was  the  deliberate  answer. 

"Can  you  improve  on  it?" 

"I  haven't  thought  about  it  at  all,"  came  the 
modest  reply,  "but  there's  nearly  always  a  way 
to  better  every  machine." 

The  head  of  the  concern  looked  him  over. 

"Come  into  the  office,"  he  said;  "if  you  have 
any  ideas  about  the  ticker,  I'd  like  to  hear  them." 

The  interview  was  brief  and  bewildering  to  Mr. 
Law.  In  his  slow  and  deliberate  way,  young 
Edison  laid  out  all  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  the  principles  of  the  system. 

"When  did  you  examine  the  instruments?" 
queried  the  head  of  the  concern. 

"I  haven't  had  a  chance  to  examine  them  yet," 
was  the  answer,  "I  could  see  that  much  while 
the  other  chaps  were  trying  to  fix  it." 

"I  really  ought  to  have  some  one  to  manage  the 
service  and  see  that  it  doesn't  get  out  of  gear  so 
much,"  said  Mr.  Law.  "Will  you  take  the  job? 
I  can't  pay  more  than  three  hundred  dollars  a 
month." 

At  the  time  this  seemed  fabulous  riches  to 
Edison,  and  nothing  but  his  natural  gravity  and 
impassiveness  kept  him  from  showing  his  surprise, 


74  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

but  he  accepted  the  position  in  what  he  felt  to 
be  the  offhand  way  that  was  required. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was  manager  of  the 
service,  however,  the  gold  ticker  broke  down 
again  and  again.  Edison  was  always  able  to 
attend  to  it  instantly,  and  in  consequence  the 
customers  were  kept  satisfied.  Edison  was  not. 
In  his  judgment,  a  piece  of  electrical  machinery 
was  not  satisfactory  until  it  was  at  least  ninety 
per  cent  perfect.  He  set  aside  his  duplex  tele- 
graph plans  to  work  on  improvements  in  the 
ticker. 

As  some  of  these  came  into  force,  the  Law  Gold 
Recorder  and  another  firm  consolidated,  and 
Edison,  for  a  little  while,  was  not  quite  sure  where 
he  was  going  to  land.  He  soon  took  a  similar 
position  of  electrician  with  the  Gold  and  Stock 
Telegraph  Company,  whose  president,  General 
Marshall  Lefferts,  gave  him  every  opportunity 
for  developing  his  ideas.  In  the  next  couple  of 
years  Edison  patented  a  host  of  stock  printers 
or  "  tickers,"  one  of  which,  with  slight  improve- 
ments, is  the  stock  and  news  ticker  of  to-day. 

One  day  two  of  the  directors  of  the  company 
stopped  Edison  in  the  brokerage  room  and  asked 
him  to  come  to  the  office  of  the  president,  stating 
that  they  wanted  to  take  up  with  him  the  ques- 


"NEVER  WATCH  THE   CLOCK!"  75 

tion  of  purchasing  the  title  to  his  inventions  and 
improvements  of  the  gold  ticker. 

"I  had  made  up  my  mind,"  Edison  has  since 
said,  "that  five  thousand  dollars  would  strike  me 
about  right,  but  I  would  take  almost  anything, 
rather  than  not  sell,  as  I  needed  money  sorely 
for  further  experiments. 

"'Well,  Mr.  Edison/  General  Lefferts  said, 
'how  much  do  you  want  for  your  devices?' 

"'I  do  not  know  how  much  they  may  be  worth 
to  you/  I  answered.  'Make  me  an  offer/ 

" '  How  would  forty  thousand  dollars  strike  you  ? ' 

"I  believe  you  could  have  knocked  me  down 
with  a  feather,  so  astonished  I  was  at  the  sum. 
But  the  check  was  handed  over  two  days  later, 
after  I  had  signed  a  large,  formidable  paper, 
about  as  intelligible  to  me  as  if  it  were  written 
in  Choctaw.  In  thirty  days  I  had  a  shop  of  my 
own,  fully  equipped  with  all  I  needed,  an  invest- 
ment which  left  me  very  little  of  the  money  I 
received  from  the  ticker  patents." 

A  second  example  of  good  fortune  gave  Edison 
an  assured  position  in  the  world  of  invention, 
and,  by  a  coincidence,  it  happened  in  very  much 
the  same  way  as  the  first.  Edison  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  burning  up  the  road  to  the  office  of 
the  president  of  the  Western  Union  every  other 


76  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

week  or  so,  for  he  was  absolutely  convinced  of 
the  value  of  his  telegraphic  inventions,  and  he 
knew  that  there  was  no  organization  which  could 
take  them  up  with  as  much  profit.  Dr.  Norvin 
Green,  who  was  president  at  that  time,  had  a 
great  respect  for  age  and  —  like  many  an  old- 
fashioned  man  —  believed  that  discipline  was  a 
wholesome  corrective  for  youth.  He  could  not 
be  persuaded  that  such  vast  plans  as  those  out- 
lined by  Thomas  Edison  could  be  of  any  value, 
since  they  were  conceived  by  so  youthful  a  per- 
sonage. 

It  chanced  that  on  one  of  these  visits,  when 
he  actually  succeeded  in  getting  into  the  sanctum 
of  Dr.  Green,  he  found  that  gentleman  in  a  highly 
irritated  state.  Indeed,  he  was  so  irascible  that 
he  found  it  necessary  to  half-apologize  for  it  by 
stating  that  the  company  was  unable  to  get  into 
communication  with  Albany,  their  line  repairers 
were  all  at  fault,  and  that  a  great  deal  of  im- 
portant business  was  being  delayed. 

"What's  wrong ?" 

"What  the  Blue  Peter  should  I  be  sitting  here 
fuming  about,  if  I  knew  what  was  wrong  ?"  re- 
torted the  magnate.  "Perhaps,  since  you  think 
you  know  such  a  blame  lot  about  telegraphy, 
you  might  undertake  to  fix  the  trouble!" 


"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!"  77 

Edison  caught  the  sarcasm  in  the  tone  and  it 
stung  him  a  little. 

"Dr.  Green,"  he  said,  "all  that  I'm  asking  you 
to  do  is  to  give  my  inventions  a  fair  consideration 
and  an  honest  trial.  If  I  locate  this  trouble  for 
you  within  three  hours,  will  you  promise  to  give 
my  ideas  their  chance?" 

The  president  stared  at  him. 

"Do  you  really  think  you  can  do  it?"  he  in- 
quired. 

Edison  wasted  no  words. 

"Yes,"  he  answered. 

"Very  good,  then,"  said  the  head  of  the  Western 
Union.  "I'll  be  as  good  as  my  word.  If  you  get 
us  out  of  this  fix  within  thirty-six  hours,  I  will 
guarantee  that  your  inventions  are  put  forward 
and  given  every  consideration  that  their  merits 
warrant." 

Edison  jumped  from  his  chair  and  made  a  bee 
line  for  the  main  office.  He  was  known  as  an 
expert  operator  and  a  good  many  of  the  men 
knew  of  his  improvements  on  the  stock  ticker, 
so  that  every  assistance  was  afforded  him. 

"At  the  main  office,"  said  Edison,  when  telling 
the  story  himself,  many  years  later,  "I  called  up 
Pittsburg  and  asked  for  the  best  operator  there. 
When  I  got  him,  I  told  him  to  call  up  Albany 


78  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

and  get  hold  of  the  best  operator  in  that  place 
to  wire  down  the  line  toward  New  York  so  far  as 
he  could  and  report  back  as  soon  as  possible.  In- 
side of  an  hour  I  received  this  message : 

U<I  can  get  to  within  two  miles  of  Poughkeepsie 
and  there  is  trouble  with  the  wire  there.' 

"I  hurried  back  to  the  office  of  the  president 
and  told  him  that  if  he  rushed  a  train  to  Pough- 
keepsie, the  repair  men  would  find  a  break  two 
miles  on  the  other  side  of  the  station  and  it  could 
be  fixed  up  that  same  afternoon. " 

In  order  to  be  able  to  give  up  routine  work  on 
a  salary  basis  and  give  his  whole  time  to  experi- 
mentation, Edison  resigned  as  manager  of  the 
Gold  and  Stock  Indicator,  and  opened  up  a  fac- 
tory in  Newark,  N.  J.,  manufacturing  his  improved 
tickers,  for  which  there  was  a  great  demand. 
This  was  his  first  definite  step  into  the  industriali- 
zation of  his  inventions. 

While  he  was  most  busily  engaged  in  super- 
vising the  manufacture  of  these  tickers,  Edison 
married  his  first  wife.  It  was  in  connection  with 
this  marriage  that  the  notorious  —  and  incorrect 
—  story  is  told  of  his  having  absolutely  forgotten 
the  fact  of  his  marriage. 

"It's  just  one  of  those  yarns  the  boys  have  to 
put  up  when  they're  short  of  news,"  Edison  has 


"NEVER  WATCH  THE  CLOCK!"  79 

since  stated.  Then  continuing,  he  is  reported 
by  F.  A.  Jones  as  having  said:  "That  annoying 
story  was  got  up  by  an  imaginative  newspaper 
man  who  knew  that  I  was  a  bit  absent-minded. 
I  never  forgot  that  I  had  been  married.  In  fact, 
I  don't  believe  any  man  would  forget  such  an 
event  unless  he  wanted  to.  But  perhaps  there 
was  something  to  account  for  the  story,  and  I 
think  it  must  have  been  this :  — 

"The  day  I  was  married,  a  consignment  of  stock 
tickers  had  been  returned  to  the  factory  as  being 
imperfect  and  I  wanted  to  find  out  what  was  wrong. 
Just  about  an  hour  after  the  marriage  ceremony 
had  been  performed  I  thought  about  those  tickers, 
and  as  soon  as  we  got  home  I  told  my  wife  about 
them  and  said  I  would  like  to  go  down  to  the 
factory.  She  agreed  at  once  and  I  went  down, 
where  I  found  Bachelor,  my  assistant,  hard  at 
work  trying  to  remedy  the  defect.  We  both 
monkeyed  about  with  them,  and  finally  after  an 
hour  or  two  [the  inventor  is  not  famous  for  his 
sense  of  time,  and  itjmight  have  been  nine  or  ten 
hours,  as  other  reports  say]  we  put  them  to  rights 
and  I  went  home  again. 

"As  to  forgetting  that  I  was  married,  that's 
all  nonsense,  and  both  I  and  my  wife  laughed  at 
the  story,  though  when  I  began  to  come  across  it 


8o  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

every  other  week  the  tale  began  to  get  tedious. 
It  was  one  of  those  made-up  stories  which  stick, 
and  I  suppose  I  shall  always  be  spoken  of  as  the 
man  who  forgot  his  wife  an  hour  after  he  was 
married." 

Apropos  of  the  inventor's  reference  to  "an  hour 
or  two,"  it  is  worthy  of  comment  that  Edison 
seldom  carries  a  watch.  There  is  no  clock  in  the 
chemical  laboratory  where  he  works  most  of  the 
time.  The  minutes  of  his  day  are  ticked  off  by 
accomplishments,  not  by  the  figures  of  a  dial. 

As  characteristic  a  piece  of  advice  as  ever  was 
given  by  the  inventor  was  that  which  he  gave  to 
the  son  of  a  well-known  English  scientist.  The 
proud  father,  after  having  introduced  the  lad, 
begged  the  Wizard  to  say  something  to  the  boy 
which  he  could  remember  as  having  been  the  most 
valuable  piece  of  advice  given  to  him  in  his  life. 

Edison,  who  is  modest  to  the  point  of  con- 
fusion, utterly  disclaimed  any  power  to  issue  an 
epigram  or  piece  of  sage  counsel  to  the  boy  at  a 
moment's  notice.  But  the  visitor  begged  so  hard 
that  the  inventor  turned  his  mind  to  the  philosophy 
of  his  actions  instead  of  to  the  actions  themselves. 
Then,  after  a  moment's  thought,  he  put  his  hand 
on  the  boy's  shoulder  and  with  a  kindly  smile  said, 

"My  boy,  never  watch  the  clock !" 


CHAPTER  VI 
BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH 

"ELECTRICITY,"  said  a  schoolboy  once,  in  an 
examination  on  physics,  "is  that  something  you 
can't  see  and  don't  know  anything  about,  that 
will  do  anything  you  want  without  your  knowing 
how  it  does  it." 

In  a  way,  the  boy's  definition,  while  it  could 
hardly  be  called  scientific,  somewhat  represents 
Edison's  own  ideas  about  electricity.  He  is  a 
kindly  natured  man  and  enormously  patient, 
but  it  is  on  record  that  he  once  delivered  himself 
of  a  strong  opinion  about  those  of  his  callers  who 
ask.  questions  about  theoretical  causes. 

"What  I  hate,"  he  said,  "is  when  I  have  tried 
to  explain  a  little  of  the  wonders  of  the  electric 
current,  to  have  some  young  college  freshie  say, 

"'Well,  after  all,  Mr.  Edison,  we  don't  know 
what  electricity  really  is,  do  we?" 

To  Edison,  electricity,  like  all  science,  is  not  so 
much  a  matter  of  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowl- 
edge, as  it  is  the  use  of  the  mysteries  of  nature  for 

G  8l 


82  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

the  betterment  of  the  human  race.  The  distinction 
between  Franklin  and  Edison  is  great.  It  is  the 
distinction  between  the  prospector  and  the  miner. 
Franklin  went  far  to  determine  the  relation  of 
electricity  to  nature;  Edison  has  constructed 
the  path  between  the  electrical  forces  of  nature 
and  the  service  of  man. 

The  electric  telegraph  as  a  commercial  success 
owes  its  completion  to  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse  and 
Chas.  Wheats  tone,  but  its  power  as  an  agent  in 
the  progress  of  the  world  is  due  to  Edison.  "The 
Wizard's''  contribution  to  the  telegraph  was  the 
invention  of  the  duplex  and  quadruplex  systems, 
by  which  one  wire  can  be  made  to  carry  two  or 
four  messages.  This  not  only  increases  the  com- 
mercial value  of  every  wire  twofold  or  fourfold, 
as  the  case  may  be,  but  it  also  correspondingly 
reduces  the  cost  of  upkeep  and  repair. 

The  value  of  the  duplex  and  quadruplex  systems 
can  best  be  understood  if  one  thinks  of  the  quad- 
ruplex system  as  being  a  plan  by  which  one  wire 
is  made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  four.  It  is  almost 
as  though  three  phantom  or  ghostly  wires,  which 
have  no  real  existence,  were  strung  parallel  to 
the  true  wire.  The  manner  in  which  this  is  ac- 
complished is  easily  understood  once  the  prin- 
ciples of  telegraphy  are  made  clear. 


BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH       83 

In  1831,  Michael  Faraday,  experimenting  on 
magnetism,  discovered  that  a  piece  of  iron  could 
be  made  into  a  magnet  by  winding  a  coil  of  in- 
sulated wire  round  it,  and  passing  a  current  of 
electricity  through  the  coil.  The  iron,  however, 
was  not  permanently  magnetized,  but  was  a 
magnet  only  so  long  as  the  current  was  flowing 
through  the  coils.  When  the  current  stopped, 
the  magnetism  ceased.  This  holds  true,  no  matter 
how  quickly  or  how  often  the  current  is  put  on 
and  off,  or,  in  the  usual  phrase,  no  matter  how 
often  one  may  "make"  and  " break"  the  cir- 
cuit. To  make  or  close  a  circuit  is  to  give  a  con- 
tinuous wire  through  which  the  current  may 
flow;  to  break  or  open  a  circuit,  is  to  put  a  gap 
at  some  part  of  the  wire,  preventing  the  flow  of 
the  current. 

If  a  metal  hammer,  or  armature,  is  so  arranged 
that  it  is  held  by  a  spring  at  a  short  distance 
above  a  soft-iron  core  wound  with  insulated  wire 
connected  with  a  galvanic  battery,  it  is  obvious 
that  when  the  current  is  passing  along  the  wire, 
making  the  soft  iron  a  temporary  magnet,  the 
metal  hammer  will  be  drawn  against  the  iron. 
As  long  as  the  current  flows,  and  the  iron  remains 
a  magnet,  the  hammer  or  armature  will  remain 
held  by  it,  in  spite  of  the  spring.  As  soon  as  the 


84  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

current  is  stopped,  and  the  iron  ceases  to  be  a 
magnet,  there  is  nothing  to  attract  the  hammer 
and  it  flies  back  with  the  pull  of  the  spring. 

As  the  magnet  can  be  made  very  powerful  by 
wrapping  a  large  number  of  coils  around  it,  the 
hammer  can  be  made  to  come  upon  the  iron  with 
such  force  that  a  sharp  "tap"  is  produced.  Then, 
it  is  clear  that  if  an  alphabet  be  arranged  which 
is  based  on  the  number  of  "taps,"  or  the  time 
between  them,  words  can  be  spelt  and  electricity 
can  convey  a  message. 

From  this  point  it  is  easy  to  see  that  if  a  key  be 
so  arranged  that  by  pressing  a  button  a  circuit 
will  be  "made"  or  "closed,"  and  by  releasing  it 
the  circuit  will  be  "broken"  or  "open,"  an  opera- 
tor using  the  key  at  one  end  of  a  wire  may  cause  a 
hammer  or  armature  to  give  a  series  of  correspond- 
ing "taps"  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire.  This 
button  arrangement,  which  is  called  the  "trans- 
mitter," may  be  at  any  distance  from  the  magnet 
and  hammer,  since  the  passage  of  electricity  is 
practically  instantaneous. 

In  actual  practice  it  was  found  by  Morse  that 
the  current  f eebled  in  passing  over  a  long  stretch 
of  wire,  so  that  it  was  too  weak  to  make  a  magnet 
strong  enough  to  attract  a  hammer  with  force 
enough  to  make  a  sufficiently  loud  "tap."  To 


BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH       85 

avoid  this,  Morse  adopted  a  system  of  strengthen- 
ing the  current  at  certain  intervals  with  "relays." 
The  idea  was  first  advanced  by  Professor  Henry 
of  the  Smithsonian,  improved  by  Morse,  and  per- 
fected by  Edison. 

The  importance  of  the  "relay"  cannot  be  over- 
estimated. If,  at  a  considerable  distance,  the 
current  becomes  too  weak  to  work  the  tapper,  and 
if  the  working  of  the  tapper  is  the  crucial  point 
in  telegraphy,  it  follows  that  the  system  is  de- 
pendent on  some  means  whereby  the  weak  current, 
at  a  long  range,  can  powerfully  operate  a  tapper. 
This  is  the  purpose  of  the  relay. 

In  the  relay,  the  tapper  is  not  on  the  main 
circuit,  but  on  a  separate  powerful  local  circuit. 
On  this  local  circuit  is  a  light  "make  and  break" 
device,  to  be  controlled  by  the  main  line.  The 
main  line,  by  this  means,  does  not  enter  the  local 
station  at  all,  it  does  not  go  through  it,  but  it 
operates  either  to  let  the  strong  local  current 
pass,  or  not. 

When  the  main  line  approaches  the  local  cir- 
cuit, it  goes  round  a  light  piece  of  soft  iron.  Im- 
mediately opposite  this  soft-iron  magnet  is  the 
break  in  the  local  circuit,  a  light  lever  being  held 
back  by  a  light  spring.  When  there  is  a  current 
(from  a  message)  on  the  main  wire,  it  magnetizes 


86  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

the  light  soft  iron,  and  pulls  the  lever  forward. 
It  is  not  allowed  to  reach  the  magnet  —  as  this 
would  draw  current  from  the  main  line  —  but 
meets  the  other  point  of  its  own  circuit,  closing  it, 
sending  the  current  through  and  operating  the 
tapper.  When  the  main  line  current  stops,  the 
light  magnet  becomes  demagnetized,  the  lever 
flies  back,  breaking  the  local  circuit,  and  the 
tapper  flies  back,  operated  by  its  spring. 

As  the  operator,  in  a  distant  town,  moves  his 
key  up  and  down,  spelling  words  in  the  Morse 
code,  thus  opening  and  closing  the  main  line 
circuit,  so  does  the  little  lever  move,  opening  and 
closing  the  powerful  local  circuit  which  works  the 
tapper.  Thus  the  listener  hears  in  loud  sharp 
clicks  the  message  that  is  beirlg  sent  from  a  distant 
sending  station,  though  the  original  current  it- 
self never  comes  upon  his  wire. 

To  use  this  wire  for  more  than  one  message  at 
a  time  was  Edison's  aim.  He  was  by  no  means 
the  first.  In  1853,  Dr.  Gintl,  an  Austrian,  in- 
vented a  duplex  system,  as  did  Carl  Frischen  of 
Hanover.  There  were  various  others,  especially 
the  "Stearns"  and  the  "Polar"  systems.  All 
had  some  weak  point.  They  had  come  to  the 
"I  don't  know"  point,  and  Edison  set  out  to  find 
the  "why"  of  it.  He  found  the  reason,  overcame 


BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH       87 

the  obstacles  that  had  halted  his  predecessors, 
and  devised  his  working  system  of  duplex  teleg- 
raphy. This  he  patented,  and  this  was  the 
basis  of  his  constant  bombardment  of  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company.  As  has  been  shown, 
he  secured  a  hearing  for  his  invention,  and  later 
sold  it  to  the  Western  Union. 

By  Edison's  instrument,  two  messages  can  be 
sent  in  opposite  directions  over  the  same  wire  at 
the  same  time.  The  attempt  to  run  two  trains 
on  a  circular  track  simultaneously  in  opposite 
directions  would  mean  sure  disaster,  but  in  duplex 
telegraphy,  messages  do  not  conflict. 

The  principle  on  which  this  system  works  is, 
that  currents  of  electricity  may  be  split  up  and 
then  will  follow  any  number  of  paths  that  may  be 
opened  to  them  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  re- 
sistance that  the  wire  offers  to  their  passage. 
This  is  in  much  the  same  way  that  water,  flow- 
ing through  a  set  of  pipes,  will  fill  them  in  exact 
proportion  to  their  size.  In  Edison's  apparatus, 
this  principle  is  so  fully  carried  out  that  the  ap- 
paratus at  each  end  pays  no  heed  to  the  move- 
ments of  its  own  transmitting  key,  although  at 
the  same  time  it  responds  to  every  movement  of 
the  key  operated  at  the  distant  station,  no  matter 
how  far  away. 


88  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Duplex  and  diplex  telegraphy,  both  of  which 
are  included  in  Edison's  system,  are  developments 
of  the  simple  electromagnetic  principle  of  the 
telegraph.  It  will  be  remembered  that  a  wire 
wound  round  a  soft-iron  core,  transforms  that 
core  into  a  magnet  when  the  current  passes  through 
the  coil.  But  if  two  wires  are  wound  round  the 
coil,  in  opposite  directions  to  each  other,  the 
currents  will  neutralize  and  the  iron  will  not  be- 
come magnetized. 

Suppose  a  wire  laid  from  New  York  to  Phila- 
delphia. From  a  battery  in  New  York  issues  a 
current  which  is  divided  into  two  wires,  wound 
in  opposite  directions  round  a  core.  One  wire 
is  grounded,  one  is  the  main  line  to  Philadelphia. 
The  current  passes  through  each  wire  with  equal 
strength.  In  one  wire  the  current  goes  to  the 
ground,  through  the  other  it  passes  on.  It  is 
clear  that  the  soft-iron  core  near  New  York  has 
not  been  affected,  for  the  currents  neutralized. 
It  is  clear  also  that  a  similar  soft  iron  core  in 
Philadelphia  will  be  affected,  since  the  current 
is  passing  only  in  one  direction.  An  armature, 
or  hammer,  in  Philadelphia,  therefore,  will  be 
made  to  sound  by  the  operating  of  a  key  in  New 
York,  although  the  New  York  tapper  has  been 
unaffected. 


BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH       89 

If,  at  the  same  time,  a  current  is  started  at 
Philadelphia,  in  like  fashion  (because  its  currents 
neutralize)  it  will  not  affect  the  Philadelphia 
sounder,  which  is  being  kept  busy  from  the  New 
York  end,  but  it  will  also  pass  along  the  main 
line  wire  to  New  York,  and,  since  it  is  a  current 
flowing  only  in  one  direction,  will  circle  the  coil, 
magnetize  the  core,  and  start  the  sounder  there, 
Thus  New  York  will  be  receiving  Philadelphia, 
at  the  same  time  that  Philadelphia  is  receiving 
New  York,  yet  each  receiver  will  be  unaffected 
by  the  transmitter  at  its  own  end. 

About  two  years  later,  in  1874,  Edison  secured 
a  patent  for  his  quadruplex  system,  easily  the 
most  important  asset  in  telegraphy  since  the  work 
of  Morse.  In  this,  the  principle  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  direction  in  which  the  coils  are  wound 
around  a  core  determines  its  polarity,  or,  in  other 
words,  which  shall  be  the  positive  and  which  the 
negative  end  of  the  magnet.  In  working  opera- 
tion, a  steel  magnet  is  used.  Steel,  unlike  soft 
iron,  retains  its  magnetism  permanently.  As  a 
negative  pole  will  repel  and  a  positive  pole  will 
attract,  a  device  which  causes  the  current  to  flow 
in  opposite  directions  alternately  around  a  soft- 
iron  core,  will  alternately  repel  and  attract  the 
permanently  magnetized  steel. 


go  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

By  combining  instruments  that  only  respond 
to  strength  of  current  with  those  that  respond 
only  to  change  of  current,  and  by  utilizing  the 
duplex  plan  of  using  the  same  wire  for  currents 
going  in  opposite  directions,  the  two  systems  can 
be  worked  from  each  end.  Thus  four  sending 
and  four  receiving  operators,  or  eight  in  all,  may 
be  kept  busy  on  a  single  wire. 

The  actual  value  of  this  invention  is  stupendous. 
Although  Edison  sold  it  to  the  Western  Union  for 
thirty  thousand  dollars,  it  has  been  worth  to  that 
company  at  least  thirty  million  dollars.  And 
even  then,  Edison  made  not  a  single  penny  profit 
on  it,  for  he  spent  all  his  thirty  thousand  dollars 
in  perfecting  a  sextuple  telegraph,  by  which  a 
wire  could  carry  six  messages.  As  an  invention 
it  was  perfect,  but  it  did  not  prove  a  commercial 
success. 

It  was  while  he  was  trying  in  vain  to  explain  the 
character  of  the  sextuple  telegraph  to  a  prominent 
visitor,  through  whose  royal  skull  he  was  unable 
to  make  the  information  penetrate,  that  Edison 
gave  what  he  says  he  considers  the  easiest,  though 
not  the  most  accurate,  illustration  of  the  nature 
of  electricity. 

"Your  Royal  Highness/'  he  said,  "I  think  the 
best  explanation  of  the  nature  of  electricity  was 


BUILDING  A  PHANTOM  TELEGRAPH       91 

one  which  I  heard  an  old  Scotch  line  repairer 
once  give  to  his  assistant. 

'"If  you  had  a  dog  something  like  a  dachshund/ 
he  said, '  only  long  enough  to  reach  from  Edinburgh 
to  London,  and  you  pulled  his  tail  in  Edinburgh, 
he  would  bark  in  London."3 

"That,"  the  inventor  went  on  to  say,  "is  as 
far  as  I  can  get.  I  can't  tell  you  exactly  what 
goes  through  the  dog  or  over  the  wire." 

A  successful  modification  of  Gray's  harmonic 
multiplex  telegraph,  an  automatic  telegraph  and 
an  autographic  telegraph,  were  invented  by 
Edison  during  the  days  when  his  headquarters 
were  at  Newark.  Indeed,  he  has  always  been 
interested  in  the  autographic  telegraph,  and 
threatens  yet  to  return  to  it  and  displace  the 
telegraph  operator  entirely.  Perhaps,  however,  a 
fellow-feeling  for  the  craft  that  sustained  him 
through  his  early  years  may  cause  him  to  forbear. 

It  was  with  reference  to  his  steady  and  un- 
remitting work  on  the  quadruplex  and  sextuplex 
telegraph  that  Edison  made  the  famous  statement 
about  "genius"  which  has  since  passed  into  a 
proverb. 

"How  can  you  deny  yourself  the  inspiration  of 
genius,  Mr.  Edison?"  an  admirer  said  one  day  in 
the  laboratory  at  Orange,  after  seeing  some  of  his 


92  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

telegraphic  inventions.  "Surely  you  don't  mean 
to  try  and  convince  me  that  anybody  could  have 
done  all  this  work  that  you  have  done  and  in- 
vented these  incredible  marvels?" 

"Well,  as  to  that,"  said  the  inventor  reflectively, 
"seems  to  me  I  hear  of  something  new  done  by 
somebody  or  other,  nearly  every  day,"  and  he 
rattled  off  a  string  of  names  that  showed  how 
closely  he  kept  in  touch  with  the  advances  in 
practical  science  all  over  the  globe. 

"But  the  genius!"  protested  his  admirer. 
"The  flash  of  inspiration!" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  was  the  reply,  as  the 
"Wizard"  turned  round  and  put  one  fist  in  his 
pocket,  and  rubbed  a  rough  chin  with  the  other 
chemical-stained  hand;  "the  way  I  look  at  it, 
seems  to  me  that  genius  is  about  two  per  cent  in- 
spiration and  ninety-eight  per  cent  perspiration." 

And  he  went  on  with  his  experiment. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR 

"WHEN  I  struck  the  telephone  business," 
Edison  said,  once,  when  asked  to  explain  his 
connection  with  the  improvement  of  the  'phone, 
"the  Bell  people  had  no  transmitter,  but  were 
talking  into  the  magneto  receiver.  You  never 
heard  such*  a  noise  and  buzzing  as  there  was  in 
that  old  machine !  I  went  to  work  and  monkeyed 
around,  and  finally  struck  the  notion  of  a  lamp- 
black button." 

The  telephone  was  almost  invented  by  Charles 
Bourseul,  a  Frenchman,  in  1854.  It  is  pathetic, 
in  a  way,  to  see  how  nearly  Bourseul  attained 
success,  and  yet  how  utterly  the  one  tiny  wrong 
point  in  his  plan  rendered  the  idea  useless.  What 
was  more,  this  one  mistake  led  every  one  else 
astray,  so  that  it  was  not  until  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century  later  that  the  world  received  its 
telephone.  Even  then,  the  instrument  was  of 
little  commercial  value  until  the  wizard  touch  of 
Edison  solved  its  last  difficulty  and  made  it  avail- 
able for  general  use. 

93 


94  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Bourseul  originated  the  whole  telephone  idea 
in  the  following  words :  — 

"I  have  asked  myself  if  the  spoken  word  could 
not  be  transmitted  by  electricity;  in  a  word,  if 
what  was  spoken  in  Vienna  may  not  be  heard 
in  Paris.  This  thing  is  practicable  in  this  way: 

"  Suppose  that  a  man  speaks  near  a  movable 
disk,  sufficiently  flexible  to  lose  none  of  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  voice;  that  this  disk  alternately 
makes  and  breaks  the  connection  from  a  battery; 
you  may  have  at  a  distance  another  disk  which 
will  simultaneously  execute  the  same  vibrations." 

The  italics  tell  the  tale.  The  reasoning,  sound 
as  it  seems,  is  on  a  false  basis.  This  was  proved 
in  1861  by  Philip  Reis,  a  German  scientist. 

Reis  was  the  inventor  of  the  word  "  telephone," 
just  as  Edison  was  the  originator  of  the  word 
" Hello!"  in  telephone  usage.  Reis  built  his 
"  tele-phone,"  following  Bourseul's  ideas  in  every 
detail.  He  experimented  with  it  a  great  deal 
and  succeeded  in  getting  an  instrument  which 
could  register  the  waves  of  sound  with  extreme 
accuracy.  But  it  had  one  fatal  and  ineradicable 
fault.  It  could  only  give  pitch,  not  tone. 

Thus,  for  example,  G  natural  on  a  musical 
scale  and  C  natural  on  a  musical  scale,  are  differ- 
ent notes  because  the  number  of  vibrations  differ, 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR  95 

the  lower  note  having  the  fewer  number  of  sound- 
waves or  vibration,  and  the  higher  note  having  a 
larger  number  of  vibrations.  The  Reis  receiver 
would  record  these  with  absolute  faithfulness. 
But  —  and  this  was  fatal  —  no  one  could  tell 
whether  the  note  was  the  product  of  a  flute,  a 
horn,  a  violin,  or  the  human  voice.  Moreover,  a 
sound  just  barely  sufficient  to  break  the  circuit, 
produced  almost  as  much  effect  as  a  loud  trumpet 
blast.  An  alphabet  of  pitch  could  be  devised, 
so  that  the  Reis  system  could  be  used  as  a  sort 
of  telegraphy  based  on  sound,  but  the  modulations 
of  the  human  voice  were  beyond  it. 
-  Then  came  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  coin- 
cidences hi  the  whole  history  of  invention.  On 
the  very  same  day,  absolutely  without  knowledge 
that  the  other  was  working  on  the  problem,  Professor 
Elisha  Gray  and  Dr.  Alexander  Graham  Bell  filed 
application  in  the  Patent  Office  for  identically 
the  same  (and  the  true)  principle  of  telephone 
transmission.  A  sensational  contest  followed.  It 
was  finally  adjudged  by  the  courts  that  Bell  had 
been  two  hours  ( ! )  earlier,  and  also  that  his  ap- 
preciation and  understanding  of  the  discovery 
was  slightly  more  complete  than  that  of  Gray. 

"It  was  left  for  Bell,"  says  a  decision  of  the 
Supreme   Court  of   the  United   States,  in   1887, 


96  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"  to  discover  that  the  failure  [of  the  Reis  apparatus] 
was  due  not  to  workmanship,  but  to  the  principle 
which  was  adopted  as  the  basis  of  what  had  to 
be  done.  He  found  that  what  he  called  the  inter- 
mittent current  —  one  caused  by  alternately  open- 
ing and  closing  the  circuit  —  could  not  be  made 
under  any  circumstances  to  reproduce  the  delicate 
forms  of  the  air  vibrations  caused  by  the  human 
voice  in  articulate  speech,  but  that  the  true  way 
was  to  operate  on  an  unbroken  current  by  in- 
creasing and  diminishing  its  intensity.  .  .  .  Such 
was  his  discovery,  and  it  was  new.  Reis  never 
thought  of  it,  and  he  failed  to  transmit  speech 
telegraphically.  Bell  did,  and  he  succeeded. 
Under  such  circumstances  it  is  impossible  to  hold 
that  what  Reis  did  was  an  anticipation  of  the 
discovery  of  Bell.  To  follow  Reis  is  to  fail,  but 
to  follow  Bell  is  to  succeed.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  two  is  just  the  difference  between  failure 
and  success. " 

The  story  of  Edison's  contribution  in  com- 
mercializing the  telephone  has  been  told  by  the 
inventor  himself. 

"In  1876,"  he  said,  "I  started  again  to  experi- 
ment for  the  Western  Union  and  Mr.  Orton. 
This  time  it  was  the  telephone.  Bell  invented 
the  first  telephone,  which  consisted  of  the  present 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR  97 

receiver,  used  both  as  a  transmitter  and  a  re- 
ceiver (the  magneto  type).  It  was  attempted 
to  introduce  it  commercially,  but  it  failed  on 
account  of  its  faintness  and  the  extraneous  sounds 
which  came  in  on  its  wires  from  different  sources. 
Mr.  Orton  wanted  me  to  take  hold  of  it  and  make 
it  commercial.  As  I  had  also  been  working  on  a 
telegraph  system  employing  tuning  forks,  simul- 
taneously with  both  Bell  and  Gray,  I  was  pretty 
familiar  with  the  subject.  I  started  in,  and  soon 
produced  the  carbon  transmitter  which  is  now 
universally  used. 

"Tests  were  made  between  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  also  between  New  York  and  Wash- 
ington, using  regular  Western  Union  wires.  The 
noises  were  so  great  that  not  a  word  could  be 
heard  with  the  Bell  receiver  when  used  as  a  trans- 
mitter between  New  York  and  Newark,  N.J. 
The  Western  Union  then  put  them  on  private 
lines. 

"Mr.  Theodore  Paskas  of  Budapest,  Hungary, 
was  the  first  man  to  suggest  a  telephone  exchange, 
and,  soon  after,  exchanges  were  established.  .  .  . 
The  Bell  Company,  of  Boston,  also  started  an 
exchange  and  the  fight  was  on,  the  Western  Union 
pirating  the  Bell  receiver  and  the  Boston  company 
pirating  the  Western  Union  transmitter. 


98  THOMAS   ALVA  EDISON 

"About  this  time  I  wanted  to  be  taken  care  of. 
I  threw  out  hints  of  this  desire.  Then  Mr.  Orton 
sent  for  me.  He  had  learned  that  inventors 
didn't  do  business  by  the  regular  process,  and 
concluded  that  he  would  close  it  right  up.  He 
asked  me  how  much  I  wanted.  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  that  it  was  certainly  worth  $25,000  if 
it  ever  amounted  to  anything  for  central-station 
work,  so  that  was  the  sum  I  had  in  mind  to  stick 
to  and  get  —  obstinately.  Still,  it  had  been  an 
easy  job,  and  only  required  a  few  months,  and 
I  felt  a  little  shaky  and  uncertain.  So  I  asked 
him  to  make  me  an  offer.  He  promptly  said 
that  he  would  give  me  $100,000. 

"'All  right/  I  said,  'it  is  yours  on  one  condition, 
and  that  is  that  you  do  not  pay  me  all  at  once, 
but  pay  me  at  the  rate  of  $6000  per  year  for 
seventeen  years' --the  life  of  the  patent.  He 
seemed  only  too  pleased  to  do  this  and  the  deal 
was  closed. 

"My  ambition  was  about  four  times  too  large 
for  my  business  capacity,  and  I  knew  that  I  would 
soon  spend  this  money  experimenting  if  I  got  it 
all  at  once,  so  I  fixed  it  that  I  couldn't.  I  saved 
seventeen  years  of  worry  by  this  stroke." 

The  operation  of  the  carbon  transmitter  is 
quite  simple.  A  button-shaped  piece  of  carbon 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR  99 

is  held  by  a  light  spring  against  the  diaphragm 
into  which  the  telephone  message  is  spoken. 
This  carbon  button  is  placed  in  circuit  with  the 
primary  wire  of  an  induction  coil,  the  battery 
being  in  the  same  circuit  and  the  secondary  of 
the  induction  coil  connected  to  the  line. 

When  the  diaphragm  is  set  in  vibration  by  the 
sound  waves  of  the  voice,  a  varying  pressure  is 
applied  to  the  carbon  button.  Now  a  loose  con- 
tact between  two  pieces  of  conducting  matter  has 
the  remarkable  property  of  conducting  a  current 
better  when  the  pressure  on  it  increases.  Pressure 
on  the  carbon  button  brings  the  molecules  of 
carbon  in  closer  contact.  With  every  change  of 
the  voice,  and  every  different  vowel  and  con- 
sonantal sound,  there  is  a  variance  in  the  move- 
ments of  the  diaphragm.  This  different  vibra- 
tion of  the  diaphragm  means  a  difference  in  the 
pressure  on  the  carbon  button,  and  this  again 
means  a  difference  in  the  electrical  resistance. 
Thus  wide  variations  of  current  are  produced  in 
the  primary,  and  consequently  similar  changes 
in  the  induced  current  are  set  up  in  the  secondary. 
These  induced  currents  are  sent  into  the  line 
and  act  on  the  receiver  at  the  distant  station. 

It  is  almost  incredible  how  little  electric  power 
is  required  to  operate  a  telephone.  For  example, 


ioo  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

the  power  required  to  burn  one  ordinary  sixteen- 
candle-power  incandescent  carbon  electric  light 
bulb  for  one  minute,  would  send  a  message  from 
the  Earth  to  the  Sun  and  back  again  twenty-five 
times,  while  the  electrical  energy  required  to  lift 
a  pound  weight  a  foot  high  would  be  sufficient  to 
operate  a  telephone  for  240,000  years. 

The  principle  of  the  variable  resistance  of  carbon 
in  proportion  to  pressure  was  taken  advantage 
of  by  Edison  in  his  tasimeter.  This  extraordinary 
instrument  is  so  delicate  that  it  has  been  used  to 
register  the  heat  contained  in  the  light  of  a  star, 
and  the  warmth  of  a  hand  held  thirty  feet  away 
causes  so  violent  a  movement  as  to  whirl  the 
needle  to  the  limit  of  the  dial. 

A  bar  of  some  substance,  such  as  vulcanite, 
which  is  extremely  sensitive  to  heat,  rests  upon  a 
metal  plate,  generally  of  platinum,  which  in  its 
turn  rests  upon  a  carbon  button,  itself  upon  a 
second  plate,  of  platinum.  The  carbon  and  the 
metal  plates  are  connected  in  a  circuit  which  in- 
cludes a  battery  and  a  sensitive  galvanometer. 
Thus,  even  an  infinitesimal  variation  in  the  length 
of  the  rod  of  vulcanite  due  to  its  contraction  or 
expansion,  its  shortening  or  lengthening,  affects 
the  resistance  of  the  circuit  to  precisely  the  same 
extent,  and  the  galvanometer  duly  records  the 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR     101 

change.  The  same  instrument,  with  a  strip  of 
gelatine  in  place  of  the  hard  rubber,  is  used  in 
determining  the  character  of  gases.  In  other 
words,  it  measures  a  smell.  Its  principal  pur- 
pose, however,  is  to  measure  extraordinarily  small 
degrees  of  moisture. 

Although  there  are  many  forms  of  microphone, 
one  of  which  was  claimed  by  Professor  Hughes 
of  England  to  be  the  first,  perhaps  the  most  effi- 
cient is  the  Edison  microphone,  in  which  carbon 
is  used  again,  but  in  which  the  carbon  is  in  the 
form  of  small  granules,  a  loose  contact  being  far 
more  sensitive.  With  this  instrument,  the  rustling 
of  tissue  paper  sounds  like  a  hurricane  at  sea. 

The  Edison  carbon  pressure  relay  follows  the 
same  principle,  the  poles  of  an  electro-magnet  in 
the  local  circuit  of  a  telegraph  line  being  hollowed 
out  and  filled  with  powdered  carbon.  With  a 
weak  current  the  armature  is  attracted  weakly  with 
a  feeble  click ;  with  a  strong  current,  the  arma- 
ture will  have  a  strong  attraction  and  a  loud  click. 

No  sooner  was  an  effective  commercial  tele- 
phone secured  than  the  inventor  was  clamorously 
summoned  by  the  Western  Union  to  help  them 
out  of  a  new  hole,  and  as  the  resulting  invention 
was  later  used  in  telephonic  improvement  it  may 
well  find  a  place  here. 


102  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

While  Edison  was  busily  engaged  in  perfecting 
his  telephone,  while,  indeed,  he  was  taking  out 
patents  for  the  water  telephone,  the  inertia  tele- 
phone, the  electrostatic  telephone,  the  voltaic  pile 
telephone  and  a  "musical  transmitter,"  the  Page 
patent,  which  had  lingered  on  in  the  Patent 
Office  for  years,  was  issued.  This  was  a  black 
menace  to  the  existing  systems  of  telegraphy. 
It  related  to  the  use  of  the  spring  which  pulls 
back  the  armature  lever  from  the  magnet  of  a 
telegraph  relay  or  sounder,  when  the  current  is 
cut  off.  At  one  swoop  this  broke  in  and  con- 
trolled one  of  the  most  important  features  of 
telegraphy,  save  for  the  simple  circuits,  and  these, 
of  course,  could  not  be  used  for  long  distances. 

"There  was  no  known  way,"  Edison  is  quoted 
by  Messrs.  Dyer  and  Martin  as  having  said, 
"  whereby  this  patent  could  be  evaded,  and  its 
possessor  would  eventually  control  the  use  of 
what  is  known  as  the  relay  and  sounder,  and 
this  was  vital  in  telegraphy.  Gould  was  pound- 
ing the  Western  Union  on  the  Stock  Exchange, 
and  being  advised  by  his  lawyers  that  this  patent 
was  of  great  value,  he  bought  it. 

"The  moment  Mr.  Orton  heard  this  he  sent 
for  me  and  explained  the  situation,  and  wanted 
me  to  go  to  work  immediately  and  see  if  I  couldn't 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR    103 

evade  it  or  discover  some  other  means  that  could 
be  used  in  case  Gould  sustained  the  patent.  It 
seemed  a  pretty  hard  job,  because  there  was  no 
known  means  of  moving  a  lever  at  the  other  end 
of  a  telegraph  wire  except  by  the  use  of  a  magnet. 
I  said  I  would  go  to  work  at  it  that  night. 

"In  experimenting  some  years  previously,  I 
had  discovered  a  very  peculiar  phenomenon. 
This  was  that  if  a  piece  of  metal  connected  to  a 
battery  was  rubbed  over  a  moistened  piece  of 
chalk  resting  on  a  metal  connected  to  the  other 
pole,  when  the  current  passed,  the  friction  was 
greatly  diminished.  When  the  current  was  re- 
versed, the  friction  was  greatly  increased  over 
what  it  was  when  no  current  was  passing. 

"Remembering  this,  I  substituted  a  piece  of 
chalk  rotated  by  a  small  electric  motor  for  the 
magnet,  and  connecting  a  sounder  to  a  metallic 
finger  resting  on  the  chalk,  the  combination  claim 
of  Page  was  made  worthless.  A  hitherto  unknown 
means  was  introduced  in  the  electric  art.  Two 
or  three  of  the  devices  were  made  and  tested  by 
the  company's  expert.  Mr.  Orton,  after  he  had 
me  sign  the  patent  application  and  got  it  in  the 
Patent  Office,  wanted  to  settle  for  it  at  once.  He 
asked  my  price.  Again  I  said, 

"'Make  me  an  offer!' 


104  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"Again  he  named  $100,000.  I  accepted,  provid- 
ing he  would  pay  it  at  the  rate  of  $6000  a  year 
for  seventeen  years.  This  was  done,  and  thus, 
with  the  telephone  money,  I  received  $12,000 
yearly  for  that  period  from  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company." 

In  order  to  make  this  a  little  clearer,  it  may 
be  said  that  the  passage  of  the  electric  current 
acts  on  chalk,  as  oil.  Thus  a  pad  pressed  hard 
against  the  drum  of  chalk  would  be  carried  for- 
ward by  friction  as  long  as  there  was  no  current, 
the  force  of  the  friction  being  stronger  than  the 
weak  spring  attached  to  the  pad.  But,  as  soon 
as  the  current  was  applied,  this  had  the  effect  of 
preventing  the  friction  or  making  the  surfaces 
seem  as  though  oiled,  so  that  the  spring  was  able 
to  exert  its  action,  thus  pulling  back  the  pad,  the 
alternate  friction  and  release  "making  and  break- 
ing" a  circuit  with  the  same  effect  as  the  electro- 
magnetic system,  which  had  previously  been  the 
only  method  known. 

This  was  a  scientific  discovery  of  great  moment- 
It  was  in  no  sense  an  improvement  on  anything 
that  had  been  done  before,  but  represented  an 
absolutely  new  element  in  electric  problems. 

The  loud-speaking  telephone  grew  partly  out 
of  a  difficulty  encountered  by  Edison  in  his  es- 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR    105 

tablishment  of  his  telephone  in  England.  A 
company  had  been  formed,  the  instruments  manu- 
factured and  sent  to  England  under  the  direction 
of  Colonel  Gouraud,  and  it  seemed  as  though 
there  was  likely  to  be  a  great  success  made  there. 

But  the  owners  of  the  Bell  patent  had  no  in- 
tention of  allowing  the  English  market  to  be 
exploited  without  their  having  a  finger  in  the  pie. 
Gouraud  cabled  to  Edison,  saying  that  he  was  up 
a  tree.  He  could  do  nothing  unless  a  new  receiver 
was  invented  which  could  in  no  way  be  regarded 
as  an  infringement  of  the  Bell  patent. 

Having  determined  this  new  factor  of  the  friction 
and  lubrication  by  means  of  the  passage  of  an 
electric  current,  Edison  was  able  to  use  precisely 
the  same  principle  in  the  telephone  receiver.  In 
the  chalk  receiver  there  was  no  magnet  at  all, 
merely  a  diaphragm  of  mica  and  a  cylinder  of 
compressed  chalk  a  little  larger  than  the  top  of  a 
finger.  A  thin  spring  extending  from  the  center 
of  the  diaphragm  rested  on  the  chalk  cylinder  with 
a  pressure  of  a  little  more  than  five  pounds.  The 
sound  was  extraordinarily  clear,  but  one  of  its  disad- 
vantages was  that  the  chalk  needed  to  be  rotated 
by  hand.  The  instruments,  nevertheless,  were  ab- 
solutely efficient,  and  it  was  merely  a  matter  of 
time  until  an  automatic  rotator  would  be  perfected. 


io6  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

After  about  a  hundred  of  these  machines  had 
been  put  in  operation,  the  fact  was  duly  impressed 
upon  the  Bell  people  that  the  Edison  company 
could  not  be  bluffed  out,  but  that  an  absolutely 
efficient  rival  was  in  the  field.  Naturally  enough 
they  offered  terms,  the  figure  cabled  being  "30,000." 
Edison  accepted,  thinking  the  sum  to  mean  dollars. 
It  was  a  surprise  of  the  most  pleasant  kind  when 
the  check  arrived,  being  made  out  for  thirty  thou- 
sand pounds  sterling. 

•j  The  loud-speaking  telephone  was  a  development 
of  the  chalk  receiver  idea.  George  Bernard  Shaw, 
who  in  his  youth  was  employed  by  Edison  in 
the  establishment  of  telephone  exchanges  in 
England,  described  this  loud-speaking  device  as 
being  "a  much  too  ingenious  invention,  being 
nothing  less  than  a  telephone  of  such  stentorial 
efficiency,  that  it  bellowed  your  most  private 
communications  all  over  the  house,  instead  of 
whispering  them  with  some  sort  of  discretion." 

When  first  working  on  the  telephone,  and  again 
when  working  on  the  phonograph,  Edison  proph- 
esied that  some  day  there  would  be  a  combina- 
tion of  the  two.  It  was  his  plan  to  invent  an 
instrument  which  would  record  telephone  con- 
versations, so  that  they  might  be  repeated  again, 
when  necessary.  For  example,  if  a  customer 


THE  GREAT  TELEPHONE  WAR     107 

wanted  to  give  an  order,  instead  of  the  usual 
"Excuse  me,  while  I  get  a  pencil!"  and  then  the 
tediousness  of  writing  down  the  conversation,  the 
machine  would  simply  record  the  whole  con- 
versation, and  the  recipient  of  the  message  could 
afterwards  go  over  it,  and  check  off,  item  by  item. 
The  instrument,  also,  would  prevent  mistakes,  as 
the  record  would  be  permanent. 

This  device,  forecasted  in  the  seventies,  was 
perfected  by  Edison  in  September,  1914.  He 
called  it  the  "telescribe."  It  is  practically  a 
sensitive  diaphragm  attached  to  an  Edison  dic- 
tating machine  (or  phonograph  recorder)  which, 
when  placed  in  direct  contact  with  a  telephone 
receiver,  will  make  a  record  on  the  cylinder.  The 
repetition  of  the  message  is  merely  the  reproduc- 
tion of  the  cylinder  in  customary  phonographic  form. 

With  the  addition  of  the  "transophone,"  also 
perfected  in  the  autumn  of  1914,  this  "telescribe" 
is  made  very  effective.  The  "transophone"  is 
a  device  enabling  a  stenographer,  writing  from  a 
dictating  machine,  to  touch  an  electric  button  and 
hear  over  again  the  sentence  to  be  written.  Thus, 
nearly  forty  years  after  his  first  prophecy  of  the 
combined  telephone  and  phonograph,  in  his  new 
"telescribe,"  Edison  has  brought  it  to  triumphant 
success. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP 

FROM  Edison's  point  of  view,  his  greatest 
achievement  is  the  perfection  of  the  incandescent 
electric  light.  In  this,  as  in  so  large  a  number  of 
Edison's  wonders,  the  initial  foundation  was  laid 
by  others.  It  remained  for  the  "  Wizard "  to 
develop  these,  to  do  what  the  others  could  not  or 
did  not  do,  and  to  transmute  phenomena  which 
were  merely  of  scientific  interest  into  inventions 
of  paramount  importance  to  the  world. 

The  history  of  electric  lighting  antedates  Edison 
by  some  millions  of  years.  The  lightning  flash 
is  a  case  of  pure  electric  lighting  and  its  vividness 
immediately  suggests  its  usefulness  to  man  if 
only  the  amount  of  current  can  be  subdivided. 
Electric  lighting  is  the  subdivision  of  electric 
lightning.  The  first  man  to  think  of  harnessing 
the  lightning  for  the  purpose  of  using  it  for  light- 
ing purposes  was  the  creator  of  the  idea  of  electric 
light. 

Benjamin  Franklin  may  be  given  the  credit  for 
much  of  the  original  idea.  In  his  famous  experi- 

108 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         109 

ment,  when  he  sent  up  a  kite  bearing  a  pointed 
wire  into  an  electrical  cloud,  and  held  a  metal 
key  near  to  the  silk  string  by  which  the  kite  was 
flown,  thereby  securing  sparks  from  it,  he  showed 
a  perception  of  the  possibilities  of  subdivision.  It 
was  to  him,  certainly,  that  the  credit  is  due  for 
having  shown  that  the  disruptive  and  fatal  effect 
of  lightning  could  be  modified,  so  that  it  would 
flow  smoothly  down  the  kite  string.  Franklin 
calmly  risked  his  life  to  prove  this  point,  and  he 
proved  it  to  his  own  fame  and  the  lasting  benefit 
of  mankind. 

The  study  of  electricity  resulted  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  fact  that  this  force  could  be  generated 
on  earth  as  well  as  in  the  skies.  It  was  evident, 
therefore,  that  the  lightning  flash  could  be  made 
in  the  laboratory.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  electric 
"  spark "  that  leaps  across  a  gap  is  this  same 
lightning  flash  on  a  smaller  basis.  The  question 
was  —  how  to  secure  permanence  to  the  sudden 
illumination. 

Sir  Humphry  Davy,  in  1800,  discovered  that 
if  a  current  was  established  in  such  a  way  that  it 
would  flow  through  two  conductors,  and  these 
conductors  were  slightly  separated,  a  flash  would 
be  emitted.  The  extreme  heat  of  this  flame  led 
Davy  to  experiment  with  various  noncombustible 


no  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

and  rarely  fusible  substances,  until  he  tried  carbon. 
He  found  that  if  the  current  were  sufficiently 
powerful,  the  flame  would  continue  and  the  carbon 
points  would  become  hot,  first  red-hot,  then 
white-hot.  When  white-hot  they  emitted  a  bril- 
liant light. 

When  the  carbon  points  were  separated,  the 
extra  potential  induced  by  the  self-induction  of 
the  circuit  was  enough  to  jump  across  the  gap, 
and  a  small  quantity  of  the  carbon  was  vaporized. 
The  resistance  of  carbon  vapor  to  electricity  is 
large,  or  in  other  words  the  friction  of  the  electric 
current  passing  through  the  resisting  particles 
is  high,  which  causes  the  vapor  to  be  raised  to  a 
very  high  temperature,  and  to  emit  a  very  brilliant 
light. 

The  principal  trouble  that  Davy  experienced 
was  that  the  character  of  the  charcoal  he  used 
was  not  commercially  efficacious.  He  had  made 
his  carbons  of  the  charcoal  from  the  wood  of  the 
willow.  As,  in  such  a  light  as  the  Davy  arc  light, 
the  electric  current  flowing  from  the  positive  to 
the  negative  carries  away  with  it  a  constant  stream 
of  carbon  particles  from  the  positive  electrode 
(hollowing  it  out),  and  deposits  them  on  the 
negative  electrode  (bringing  it  to  a  point),  and 
as  a  certain  amount  of  the  carbon  was  vaporized, 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         in 

it  was  not  long  until  the  points  would  burn  away. 
As  they  burned  away,  the  distance  between  nega- 
tive and  positive  would  grow  larger  until  the 
gap  widened  to  a  point  where  the  current  would 
not  leap  it,  and  the  light  went  out. 

Modern  arc  lighting  uses  much  the  same  prin- 
ciple, though  the  carbons  are  more  durable,  pe- 
troleum coke,  gas  coke  or  lampblack  being  used. 
The  modern  arc  light  is  also  provided  with  a 
mechanism  to  bring  the  carbons  together  to 
start  the  current,  then  to  separate  them  a  cer- 
tain distance  apart  and  maintain  them  at  exactly 
that  distance,  irrespective  of  the  rapidity  with 
which  they  may  burn  away. 

The  idea  of  the  incandescent  lamp  dates  back 
to  the  year  1812.  But  every  early  effort  to  secure 
the  brilliant  white  light  by  the  heating  of  a  con- 
ductor failed  from  the  same  reason  —  namely, 
that  the  melting  point  of  the  metal  conductors 
was  so  near  the  temperature  that  was  required 
to  bring  them  to  a  white  heat,  that  a  very  slight 
increase  in  the  current  immediately  destroyed  the 
conductor. 

Among  these  experimenters,  an  American,  J.  W. 
Starr,  takes  high  rank  for  being  the  first  to  sub- 
stitute carbon  filaments  for  platinum.  Though, 
years  later,  Edison  was  to  work  on  this  line  and 


112  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

bring  success  where  all  others  had  failed,  it  is  not 
to  be  forgotten  that  the  original  idea  of  the  carbon 
filament  is  still  the  product  of  a  United  States 
inventor,  and  that  the  first  patent  for  a  carbon 
filament  is  recorded  in  the  Patent  Office  at  Wash- 
ington. When  it  is  remembered  what  the  in- 
candescent light  has  done  for  mankind,  how  —  in 
a  word  —  it  has  enabled  man  to  have  daylight 
for  twenty-four  hours  if  he  chooses,  the  work 
begun  by  Starr  and  brought  to  a  successful  con- 
clusion by  Edison  ranks  as  one  of  the  most  not- 
able scientific  achievements  of  history. 

Prior  to  the  discovery  of  the  carbon  filament, 
Edison  experimented  a  great  deal  with  metal 
filaments,  particularly  platinum.  This  metal  was 
selected  because  of  its  susceptibility  of  being 
drawn  out  into  fine  wire  and  because  its  fusing 
/  or  melting  point  is  very  high. 

The  experiments  with  platinum  wire  were 
brought  by  Edison  to  a  point  nearer  perfection 
than  was  secured  by  any  other  of  the  dozens  of 
inventors  who  were  working  on  the  problem, 
both  in  Europe  and  the  United  States.  To  put 
the  whole  series  of  experiments  in  a  few  words, 
Edison  found  that  platinum  wire,  heated  in  a 
flame  of  hydrogen,  lost  weight,  and  finally  was 
burned  away.  Next  he  found  that  platinum 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         113 

wire,  heated  so  that  it  was  white-hot  or  incandes- 
cent, lost  weight,  a  wire  one  five-thousandth  of 
an  inch  in  diameter  losing  three  milligrammes 
in  twenty  minutes.  A  wire  one  twenty-thou- 
sandth part  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  placed  under 
a  glass  shade,  lost  at  the  same  rate,  and  the  sides 
of  the  glass  were  so  heavily  coated  with  the  deposit 
that  the- glass  became  opaque  and  the  glowing  wire 
was  invisible.  This  made  the  burning  of  pure  plati- 
num wire  in  the  open  air  a  commercial  impossibility. 
At  this  point  Edison  started  work  on  the  wire 
itself,  experimenting  with  various  alloys  of 
platinum,  especially  zircon  and  iridium.  Many 
weary  months  were  spent  in  a  ceaseless  series  of 
experiments,  all  of  which  tended  to  the  same 
conclusion  —  failure.  Then  it  was  that  Edison, 
carefully  studying  the  loss  in  weight  of  all  these 
metals  when  heated  to  incandescence,  declared 
his  belief  that  this  was  due  to  the  "washing  action 
of  the  air,"  and  that  a  great  deal  of  the  difficulty 
might  be  avoided  if  the  light  were  burned  in  a 
vacuum,  a  glass  bulb  from  which  all  the  air  had 
been  exhausted  by  an  air-pump.  When  the  bulb 
was  partly  exhausted  of  air,  the  platinum  wire 
burned  for  two  hours  before  the  glass  blackened, 
and  when  the  air  was  exhausted  still  further,  it 
burned  for  five  hours. 


114  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Finally,  to  use  the  inventor's  own  words,  "In 
a  sealed  glass  bulb,  exhausted  by  a  Sprengel 
pump  to  a  point  where  a  quarter  of  an  inch  spark 
from  an  induction  coil  would  not  pass  between 
points  one  millimeter  apart  (for  lack  of  any  air 
as  a  conductor)  was  placed  a  spiral,  the  connected 
wires  passing  through  the  glass.  The  spiral  was 
kept  at  the  most  dazzling  incandescence  for  hours 
without  the  slightest  deposit  becoming  visible." 

So  far  as  securing  the  light  was  concerned, 
Edison  had  succeeded,  and  the  platinum  filament 
lamp  was  a  success.  There  was,  however,  one 
grave  difficulty.  This  was  the  all  too  familiar 
fact  that  the  melting  point  of  the  wire  was  so 
slightly  above  the  incandescent  point  that  a  very 
slight  increase  in  the  current  melted  the  wire  and 
destroyed  the  lamp.  For  some  time,  thereafter, 
Edison  devoted  himself  to  patents  and  inventions 
for  the  prevention  of  this  undesired  sudden  in- 
crease of  the  current.  Of  these  he  pinned  his 
faith  to  two:  a  regulating  bar  which  expanded 
when  the  current  was  too  strong,  its  expansion 
operating  a  mechanism  which  cut  off  the  flow  of 
electricity,  and  a  diaphragm  acted  upon  by  the 
expansion  of  air  or  gas  inclosed  in  a  tube. 

So  important,  however,  had  Edison's  position 
in  the  electrical  world  become,  that  just  as  soon 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         115 

as  the  patents  covering  the  platinum  lamps  and 
the  two  forms  of  regulators  were  made  public,  the 
scientific  press  of  the  world  took  up  a  discussion 
of  the  value  of  his  inventions.  It  was  a  unit  in 
declaring  that  the  main  weakness  of  the  device 
lay  in  the  narrow  margin  between  the  luminosity 
of  the  light  and  the  melting  point  of  the  wire, 
and  they  pointed  out  that  the  adjustments  of 
the  regulator  would  have  to  be  so  minute  as 
to  render  the  lamp  commercially  of  doubtful 
success. 

It  was  a  just  criticism,  but  it  had  been  an- 
ticipated by  Edison.  Between  the  time  he  had 
sent  in  the  application  to  the  Patent  Office  and 
the  day  it  was  given  out  to  the  public,  the  in- 
ventor had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  pure 
platinum  never  could  be  suitable  to  the  purpose 
of  electric  lighting.  By  the  time  the  discussion 
was  under  way,  he  was  already  working  on  the 
incorporation  with  platinum  of  a  non-conducting 
material.  This  worked  admirably  —  for  a  while. 
But  permanence  did  not  lie  in  that  direction. 
Another  series  of  experiments  followed,  with 
various  plans  for  combining  conducting  and  non- 
conducting materials.  As  fast  as  difficulties  ap- 
peared in  these,  efforts  were  made  to  overcome 
them  by  new  forms  of  regulators.  At  least  a 


n6  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

score  of  regulators  were  invented  to  fit  special 
needs,  and  patented,  all  to  be  abandoned. 

Thirteen  months  of  never-ceasing  investigation, 
day  after  day,  and  often  far  into  the  night,  had 
passed.  Edison,  with  that  courageous  facing  of 
an  issue  which  is  so  largely  part  of  the  secret  of 
his  make-up,  resolutely  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  was  absolutely  on  the  wrong  track.  He 
had  given  his  mind  to  the  subject  of  metals  for  a 
year.  To  the  inventor's  mind  the  principle  re- 
mained sound,  though  the  substance  was  as  yet 
unthought  of. 

The  clew,  though  no  one  but  Edison  would  recog- 
nize it  as  a  clew,  came  largely  as  an  accident.  Not 
only  would  no  one  but  Edison  have  seen  the  clew, 
none  but  an  Edison  could  have  made  use  of  it. 
In  spite  of  all  the  many  difficulties  in  the  platinum 
lamp,  so  profound  was  public  confidence  in  the 
"  Wizard "  that  a  number  of  financiers  had  come 
together,  formed  a  company,  and  placed  enormous 
sums  of  money  at  the  inventor's  disposal.  It  was 
on  these  sums  that  the  latter  portion  of  the  ex- 
perimentation was  carried  out,  though  all  the 
earlier  trials  had  been  done  on  the  inventor's  own 
funds. 

Not  exactly  despondent,  but  distinctly  down- 
hearted as  he  reviewed  the  past  work  and  its  final 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         117 

unsatisfactory  outcome,  Edison  sat  alone  in  his 
laboratory  one  October  evening  in  1879  and  re- 
viewed in  mind  every  possible  known  substance 
in  the  world  which  could  be  substituted  for  the 
metal  filament.  On  the  table,  stained  with 
chemicals,  lay  a  little  pile  of  lampblack  mixed 
with  tar  with  which  one  of  Edison's  assistants 
had  been  working  that  day  in  connection  with 
the  carbon  telephone  transmitter. 

With  the  unconscious  physical  motions  so  often 
occurring  when  one  is  immersed  in  profound 
thought,  Edison  reached  out  his  hand  and  began 
rolling  a  pellet  of  the  mixture  between  finger  and 
thumb.  The  tar  making  it  tenacious,  the  pellet 
rolled  out  into  a  fine  thread.  Looking  down  at 
it  idly,  Edison  was  struck  by  its  resemblance  to 
a  piece  of  wire. 

Anything  resembling  wire,  by  a  natural  associa- 
tion of  ideas,  reminded  him  of  the  filament  needed 
for  his  lamp.  Of  late  his  mind  had  been  turned 
to  threads  of  non-conducting  materials,  and  like  a 
flash  there  recurred  to  him  Starr's  experiments 
on  a  carbon  filament.  Being  carbon,  the  lamp- 
black would  have  a  greater  resistance  than  the 
metal.  Could  this  be  a  possible  solution  ?  Starr's 
plans  had  failed  utterly,  his  carbon  plates  in  a 
Torricellian  vacuum  burning  out  rapidly. 


n8  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Edison,  alone,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  was  in  a 
position  to  take  advantage  of  the  clew.  His  ex- 
periments with  platinum  had  all  tended  toward 
the  production  of  an  almost  perfect  vacuum  bulb, 
a  bulb  in  which  only  one-millionth  part  of  an 
atmosphere  was  left  behind.  This  bulb,  itself, 
was  the  result  of  Edison's  inventiveness,  as  in 
his  platinum  researches  he  had  invented  and 
patented  several  improvements  on  the  Spreckel 
mercury  air-pump. 

A  vacuum  of  such  extreme  character  had  never 
been  known  before,  and  a  better  opportunity  to 
test  the  properties  of  a  carbon  filament  had  never 
been  before.  A  thread  of  the  lampblack  and  tar 
was  inserted  in  a  bulb,  the  air  exhausted,  and  the 
current  turned  on.  A  good  light  was  the  result. 
But  —  there  was  always  this  "but"  in  those 
early  experiments  —  the  carbon  soon  burnt  out. 

Here  was  a  new  problem.  The  carbon  had  not 
burnt  out,  as  the  metal  did,  because  of  any  melt- 
ing ;  it  must  be  due  to  the  action  of  the  air.  Since 
the  vacuum  was  almost  perfect,  the  air  must  be 
in  the  lampblack.  Edison  felt  sure  that  he  was 
on  the  right  track.  A  carbon  filament  was  needed, 
but  not  a  filament  composed  of  lampblack  and  tar. 

Then  came  the  historic  three  days  in  electric 
lighting,  ending  October  21,  1879.  Edison,  rapidly 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP          119 

thinking  over  possible  materials  to  carbonize, 
realized  that  cotton  was  specially  prepared  and 
spun  to  be  as  strong  as  possible  in  proportion  to 
its  fineness.  He  sent  a  boy  out  for  a  spool  of 
cotton.  Even  Charles  Bachelor,  his  closest  as- 
sociate, pinned  little  hope  to  the  plan.  How 
could  so  weak  a  thing  resist  the  force  of  a  current 
that  would  melt  the  hardest  of  metals? 

A  loop  of  the  thread,  about  two  inches  long,  was 
laid  in  a  nickel  mold,  clamped  and  placed  in  a 
muffle  furnace,  where  it  was  left  for  five  hours. 
It  was  then  taken  out  and  allowed  to  cool.  Next, 
the  mold  was  opened  and  the  carbonized  thread 
taken  out.  It  broke  to  pieces  at  the  lightest 
touch.  Another  piece  of  cotton  was  carbonized 
and  it  broke  the  same  way. 

For  two  days  and  two  nights,  without  rest  or 
sleep,  Edison  and  Bachelor  worked  on  this  one 
experiment  alone  Two  whole  spools  of  thread 
were  used,  in  two-inch  pieces;  from  this  one  may 
realize  how  many  hundreds  of  disappointments  lay 
in  this  one  heartbreaking  series  of  tests.  Only 
twice  in  all  that  time  did  they  succeed  in  taking 
from  the  mold  a  perfect  and  unbroken  filament, 
but  when  they  attempted  to  attach  it  to  the  con- 
ducting wire,  it  broke.  Another,  which  showed 
good  signs  of  strength,  was  shattered  when  Bachelor 


120  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

breathed  in  its  direction.  All  through  the  experi- 
ments, every  time  either  man  breathed,  he  turned 
his  face  away  from  the  thread  lest  the  slight  cur- 
rent of  air  should  shatter  it. 

Bachelor  was  extraordinarily  deft  and  delicate 
with  his  hands,  and  a  third  carbon  was  made  and 
successfully  inserted  in  the  lamp.  The  air  was 
exhausted  and  the  current  turned  on.  As  the 
current  flowed  through  the  carbonized  bit  of  cot- 
ton thread,  it  began  to  glow  with  a  soft  light. 

In  what  was  little  less  than  an  agony  of  expecta- 
tion, Edison  and  Bachelor  watched  the  thread 
burn.  Second  after  second,  minute  after  minute 
passed,  and  the  thin  filament  glowed  on  steadily. 
Little  by  little  the  current  was  increased  until 
there  was  force  sufficient  to  have  melted  the  plati- 
num. But  the  little  carbonized  cotton  thread 
burned  on.  It  was  still  burning,  when,  after  his 
session  of  three  days  and  nights,  Edison  went  to 
bed.  It  was  still  burning,  when,  twenty-three 
hours  later,  he  got  up.  It  burned  for  forty-five 
hours.  The  problem  of  electric  lighting  was  solved. 

In  spite  of  this  success,  forty-five  hours  was  too 
short  a  time  for  full  commercial  satisfaction,  and 
it  was  at  this  point  that  the  extraordinarily  Ameri- 
can character  of  Edison's  genius  reappeared.  He 
had  solved  the  problem,  the  invention  was  achieved. 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         121 

But  the  cost  of  making  bulbs  of  carbonized  thread 
would  be  so  great,  their  destructibility  would  be 
so  easy,  and  the  length  of  time  which  they  burned 
so  short,  that  while  electric  lighting  was  assured, 
it  would  be  more  expensive  than  gas  and  therefore 
could  not  enter  the  field  as  an  equal  competitor. 
The  scientific  solution  of  the  incandescent  light 
problem  was  the  carbon  filament  in  a  high  vacuum, 
the  commercial  problem  was  the  making  of  a  car- 
bon filament  which  would  be  less  destructible. 

The  next  two  weeks  at  the  Edison  laboratory 
can  only  be  called  an  orgy  of  carbonizing.  Every 
available  man  was  set  at  work  turning  into  carbon 
every  available  material.  Straw,  hay,  wicker, 
paper,  cardboard  (which  worked  very  well), 
splints  of  every  kind  of  wood,  all  were  called  into 
requisition.  No  walking-stick  or  umbrella  was 
safe.  It  was  Edison  himself  who  made  the  next 
step.  He  got  hold  of  an  old  bamboo  fan  and 
carbonized  different  parts  of  it.  The  rim  that 
went  round  the  edge  of  the  fan,  when  carbonized, 
proved  to  make  by  far  the  best  filament  that  had 
yet  been  tried. 

The  inventor  took  up  the  question  of  bamboos. 
He  found  that  botanists  had  listed  twelve  hundred 
varieties  of  bamboo,  in  various  parts  of  the  world, 
many  of  them  in  inaccessible  jungles  and  forests. 


122  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

It  took  Edison  about  one  minute  to  decide  that 
he  wanted  samples  of  every  kind  of  bamboo  in  the 
world.  He  sent  out  half  a  dozen  men  to  rake 
every  corner  of  the  globe  for  bamboo.  The  search 
cost  more  than  $100,000. 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  Edison  than  his 
persistence  in  trying  everything.  The  carbon  fila- 
ment is  an  astonishing  example  of  this.  The  story 
of  how  he  sent  James  Ricalton  is  worth  telling. 
Ricalton  was  principal  of  a  school  at  Maplewood, 
New  Jersey,  and  was  a  student  of  natural  history, 
having  written  a  few  scientific  papers  which  showed 
him  to  be  a  keen  field  observer.  Edison  sent  for 
him,  and  without  any  preliminaries  began  the 
interview : 

"I  want  a  man  to  ransack  all  the  tropical  jun- 
gles of  the  East  to  find  a  better  fiber  for  my  lamp ; 
I  expect  it  to  be  found  in  the  palm  or  bamboo 
family.  How  would  you  like  that  job  ?  " 

"It  would  suit  me,"  Ricalton  replied. 

"Can  you  go  to-morrow?" 

"Certainly,  but  I  must  arrange  for  a  substitute. 
Maybe  I  can  do  that  to-night.  Can  you  tell  me 
how  long  the  trip  will  take?" 

"How  can  I  tell?"  responded  Edison.  "Maybe 
six  months  and  maybe  five  years ;  no  matter  how 
long,  find  it." 


OUTRIVALING  ALADDIN'S  LAMP         123 

More  than  a  year  later  Ricalton  returned  after 
a  trip  full  of  the  most  amazing  experiences.  He 
brought  back  over  a  hundred  species  of  bamboo, 
two  of  which  proved  more  successful  than  any  so 
far  found.  On  the  day  of  his  return  he  met  Edison 
in  the  hall  of  the  laboratory.  The  inventor  recog- 
nized him,  shook  hands,  and  said, 

" Did  you  find  it?" 

"  Yes,"  Ricalton  replied. 

"Good!"  Edison  responded  and  passed  on, 
troubling  himself  no  further  about  a  great  expense 
and  a  marvelous  effort,  which,  a  few  weeks  later, 
was  to  prove  futile  and  be  superseded  by  a  better 
fiber. 

One  of  the  best  samples  of  bamboo  was  secured 
in  Japan  in  1880  by  W.  H.  Moore,  and  in  1880 
an  expedition  was  organized  to  hunt  through  the 
interior  of  Brazil.  Other  men  went  to  the  West 
Indies,  to  British  Guiana,  Mexico,  Ceylon  and 
India.  In  1887  Me  Go  wan  led  an  expedition  up 
the  Amazon  and  secured  a  fiber  still  better  than 
anything  that  had  gone  before.  The  mere  story 
of  McGowan's  adventures  is  perhaps  the  most 
thrilling  narrative  in  the  whole  history  of  quests 
for  the  sake  of  science. 

Yet  the  ideal  and  perfect  bamboo  seemed  as 
hard  to  find  as  the  Fountain  of  Perpetual  Youth, 


•f 


124  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

or  the  Golden  El  Dorado.  After  these  years  of 
search  Edison  adopted  a  compound  carbon  fila- 
ment, which  could  be  manufactured  on  a  large 
scale,  and  which,  in  its  turn,  has  given  place  to 
tungsten  filament  and  nitrogen  lights. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  BULB 

THE  perfection  of  the  electric  light  bulb  solved 
the  question  of  electric  lighting,  as  scientifically 
considered,  and  the  various  improvements  that 
Edison  made  in  the  bulb  gradually  increased  its 
length  of  life  and  decreased  its  cost,  so  that  it 
became  possible  to  enter  the  new  light  as  a  com- 
petitor with  gas.  But  here  another  difficulty 
was  encountered.  Gas  was  an  established  in- 
dustry, with  its  own  mains  and  street  franchises. 
The  electric  light  bulb  was  only  of  value  when 
it  could  be  attached  to  an  electric  current.  If 
electricity  were  to  supplant  gas,  or  even  to  supple- 
ment gas,  it  was  imperative  that  there  should  be 
central  electric  stations  in  cities. 

Edison  laid  the  foundation  of  this  by  preparing 
a  general  illumination  of  Menlo  Park,  where  his 
laboratories  were  at  that  time.  During  the  early 
days  of  January,  1881,  a  special  illumination  took 
place  for  the  edification  of  the  New  York  Board  of 
Aldermen,  who  took  a  special  train  to  the  inventor's 

125 


126  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

works.  It  had  been  so  arranged  that  the  party 
should  arrive  after  dark,  and  the  hundreds  of 
incandescent  lamps  glowing  among  the  leafless 
trees  was  a  striking  example  of  the  success  of  the 
Edison  electric  light. 

One  of  the  features  which  attracted  special 
attention  was  the  fact  that  each  lamp  could  be 
lighted  or  extinguished  independently.  Realizing 
the  importance  of  this  visit,  and  desiring  to  insure 
against  possible  failure,  Edison  had  put  in  fine 
copper  wire  as  fuses  in  various  places.  It  was 
well  that  he  did  so,  for  one  of  the  aldermen,  either 
as  a  joke  or  with  ulterior  motives,  had  brought 
along  a  piece  of  heavy  wire,  hidden  up  his  sleeve. 
He  managed  to  short-circuit  the  mains  with  his 
wire,  and  was  very  much  surprised  because  only 
three  lamps  went  out. 

A  similar  occurrence  happened  when  a  Balti- 
more committee  was  on  a  trip  to  report  on  the 
light.  This  time  the  miscreant  was  caught  by 
the  special  watchers  that  Edison  had  appointed. 
When  searched,  a  piece  of  insulated  No.  10  wire 
was  found  running  up  his  sleeves  and  over  his 
shoulders.  In  this  case,  four  lamps  went  out. 
They  found  that  he  had  an  interest  in  the  Balti- 
more Gas  Co.  The  Baltimoreans  were  shocked, 
and  the  principal  effect  was  to  set  them  against 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  BULB         127 

the  Gas  Company  and  to  align  them  in  favor  of 
the  electric  light. 

The  visiting  committees  from  various  cities 
usually  returned  greatly  impressed  with  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  system  and  ready  to  listen  to  any 
reasonable  plan  that  was  laid  before  them  dealing 
with  electric  light.  As  Edison  had  hoped,  these 
trips  enabled  the  men  forming  the  committees  to 
deal  with  electrical  matters  with  an  intelligent 
understanding. 

When  the  time  came  to  approach  the  problem, 
Edison  was  ready.  Together  with  his  plans  for 
the  perfecting  of  the  incandescent  bulb  itself,  his 
mind  had  been  busy  with  the  still  vaster  question 
—  that  of  the  establishment  of  a  great  central 
station  from  which  consumers  might  obtain  their 
electric  light  in  the  same  way  that  they  did  their 
gas.  For,  after  all,  the  electric  light  bulb  was  to  an 
electric  system  no  more  than  a  gas  jet  is  to  a  gas 
lighting  system. 

Here  is  an  even  greater  example  of  the  character   \ 
of  Edison's  work.     The  commercialization  of  his  v 
invention  in  such  a  way  that  the  world  should 
be  benefited  was  his  ambition,  the  mere  scientific 
satisfaction  was  not  enough  for  him. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  electric  lighting 
was  something  entirely  new.  Aside  from  the 


128  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

string  of  lamps  that  shone  down  the  walk  at  Menlo 
Park,  there  was  not  another  in  the  world.  No 
factories  existed  where  apparatus  could  be  made, 
and  there  were  no  trained  men  to  supervise,  to 
construct,  or  to  install  an  electric  light  system. 
Indeed,  outside  the  Edison  laboratory  there  was 
no  one  who  knew  anything  about  electric  lighting. 
Not  only  did  Edison  have  to  make  the  plant,  he 
actually  had  to  teach  everybody  everything  con- 
nected with  it. 

In  typical  fashion,  the  inventor  sent  for  a  large 
insurance  map  of  New  York  in  which  every  eleva- 
tor shaft  and  boiler  and  housetop  and  fire-wall  was 
set  out.  After  careful  study,  he  decided  that  a 
section  of  the  city  which  embraced  the  larger 
number  of  the  financial  and  office  buildings,  and 
which  extended  from  one  river  to  the  other,  was 
the  best  for  his  purpose. 

The  first  point  was  to  find  out  how  much  gas 
was  used.  Edison  hired  men  to  tramp  certain 
beats  in  that  district  every  hour  of  the  night, 
counting,  on  each  round,  the  number  of  lights 
burning.  Knowing  the  price  of  gas  and  the 
average  consumption  per  burner,  Edison  got  a 
rough  idea  of  what  the  people  of  that  district 
spent  for  gas.  After  a  little  close  figuring,  he 
decided  that  he  could  afford  to  give  them  elec- 


THE   POWER  BEHIND   THE  BULB         129 

tricity    at   a   price   sufficiently    close    to    gas    to 
warrant  him  in  proceeding. 

But  when  it  came  to  building  the  central  sta- 
tion and  installing  the  system,  Edison  had  his 
hands  full.  One  of  his  men  was  put  in  charge 
of  a  factory  for  making  the  lamps,  another  was 
set  to  work  making  tubes,  a  third  got  hold  of  a 
machine  shop  and  started  making  the  dynamos, 
while  others,  again,  undertook  various  needed 
small  parts.  Real  estate  was  almost  impossible 
to  get,  but  at  last  Edison  secured  a  place.  It  was 
far  too  small,  and  a  huge  output  was  needed.  The 
only  way  out  of  the  difficulty  was  high-speed 
engines  —  and  —  there  were  no  high-speed  engines 
in  those  days.  Edison,  in  the  Engineering  Review, 
has  told  how  he  overcame  the  difficulty. 

"I  had  conceived  the  idea  of  a  direct-coupled 
machine  and  wanted  to  hitch  the  dynamo  direct 
to  the  engine  without  belting,"  he  wrote.  "I 
could  not  see  why,  if  a  locomotive  could  run  on 
that  speed,  a  150  horse-power  engine  could  not 
be  made  to  run  350  turns  a  minute.  The  engine 
builders,  when  I  asked  them  about  it,  held  up 
their  hands  and  said  '  Impossible ! '  I  didn't  think 
so.  I  found  C.  H.  Porter  and  said  to  him, 

"'Mr.  Porter,  I  want  a  150  horse-power  engine 
to  run  700  revolutions  a  minute.' 


130  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"He  hummed  and  hawed  a  bit  and  then  agreed 
to  build  it.  After  a  while,  he  got  it  finished  and 
sent  it  out  to  the  Park.  We  set  the  machine  up 
in  the  old  shop,  and  I  had  some  idea  of  what  might 
happen.  So  we  tied  a  chain  round  the  throttle 
and  ran  it  out  through  a  window  into  the  wood- 
shed, where  we  stood  to  work  it.  Now  the  old 
shop  stood  on  one  of  those  New  Jersey  shale  hills, 
and  every  time  we  opened  up  the  engine  and  she 
got  to  about  300  revolutions,  the  whole  hill  shook 
under  her.  We  shut  her  off  and  rebalanced,  and 
tried  again,  and,  after  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  we 
finally  did  run  up  to  700,  but  you  should  have  seen 
her  run!  Why,  every  time  the  connecting  rod 
went  up,  she  tried  to  lift  that  whole  hill  with  her! 
After  we  got  through  with  this  business  we  tamed 
her  down  to  350  revolutions  (which  was  all  I 
wanted).  .  .  .  We  closed  a  bill  with  Porter  for 
six  engines. 

"While  all  this  was  going  on  in  the  shop,  we 
had  dug  ditches  and  laid  mains  all  around  the 
district.  I  used  to  sleep  nights  on  piles  of  pipes 
in  the  station,  and  I  saw  every  box  poured  and 
every  connection  made  on  the  whole  job.  I  had 
to !  There  was  nobody  else  who  could  superin- 
tend it.  Finally  we  got  our  feeders  all  down  and 
started  to  put  on  an  engine  and  turn  over  one  of 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  BULB         131 

the  machines  to  see  how  things  were.  My  heart 
was  in  my  mouth  at  first,  but  everything  worked 
all  right  and  we  had  more  than  500  ohms  insula- 
tion resistance.  Then  we  started  another  engine 
and  threw  them  in  parallel. 

"Of  all  the  circuses  since  Adam  was  born,  we 
had  the  worst  then.  One  engine  would  stop,  and 
the  other  would  run  up  to  about  a  thousand  revo- 
lutions and  then  they  would  see-saw. 

"What  was  the  matter?  Why,  it  was  these 
Porter  governors !  When  the  circus  commenced, 
the  men  who  were  standing  round  ran  out  precipi- 
tately, and  some  of  them  kept  running  for  a  block 
or  two.  I  grabbed  the  throttle  of  one  engine, 
and  E.  H.  Johnson,  who  was  the  only  one  present 
who  kept  his  wits,  caught  hold  of  the  other  and  we 
shut  them  off.  Of  course  I  discovered  then  that 
what  had  happened  was  that  one  set  was  running 
the  other  one  as  a  motor. 

"I  then  put  up  a  long  shaft  connecting  all  the 
governors  together,  and  thought  this  would  cer- 
tainly cure  the  trouble,  but  it  didn't.  The  tor- 
sion of  the  shaft  was  so  great  that  one  governor 
managed  still  to  get  ahead  of  the  others.  Then 
I  got  a  piece  of  shafting  and  a  tube  in  which  it 
fitted.  I  twisted  the  shaft  one  way  and  the  tube 
the  other,  as  far  as  I  could,  and  pinned  them 


132  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

together.  In  this  way,  by  straining  the  whole 
outfit  up  to  its  elastic  limit  in  opposite  directions, 
the  torsion  was  practically  eliminated,  and  after 
that  the  governors  ran  together  all  right. 

"  Somewhere  about  that  time  I  got  hold  of 
Gardiner  C.  Sims,  and  he  undertook  to  build  an 
engine  to  run  at  350  revolutions  and  give  175 
horse  power.  He  went  back  to  Providence  and 
set  to  work  and  brought  the  engine  back  with 
him.  It  worked,  but  only  for  a  few  minutes,  when 
it  busted.  That  man  sat  around  that  shop  and 
slept  in  it  for  three  weeks  until  he  got  his  engine 
right  and  made  it  work  the  way  he  wanted  it  to. 

"When  he  reached  this  period,  I  gave  orders  for 
the  works  to  run  night  and  day  until  we  got  enough 
engines,  and  when  all  was  ready,  we  started  the 
main  engine.  The  date  was  September  4,  1882,  a 
Saturday  night.  That  was  when  we  first  turned 
the  current  on  to  the  mains  for  regular  light  dis- 
tribution, and  it  stayed  on  for  eight  years  with 
only  one  insignificant  stoppage.  One  of  these  en- 
gines that  Sims  built  ran  twenty-four  hours  a  day 
for  365  days  before  it  was  stopped  to  give  it  a  rest." 

The  first  incandescent  electric  light  central 
station  in  the  world  was  at  Apple  ton,  Wisconsin, 
with  one  dynamo  and  fifty  lights.  From  that 
time  to  the  present,  the  industry  has  grown  to 


THE  POWER  BEHIND   THE  BULB         133 

such  an  extent  that  figures  scarcely  serve  to  show 
its  rate  of  growth.  Thirty  years  after  its  inven- 
tion, the  investment  in  the  electric  lighting  plants 
of  the  United  States  was  estimated  at  a  billion 
dollars  and  that  of  foreign  countries  together  as 
three  billion  dollars.  The  day  is  close  at  hand 
when  half  a  trillion  dollars  will  be  invested  in  the 
invention  whose  perfection  can  be  unhesitatingly 
ascribed  to  Edison  alone. 

At  this  point  it  is  well  to  clear  up  the  old  and 
much  disputed  question  as  to  the  amount  of  origi- 
nality and  creativeness  displayed  by  Edison  in 
this  invention  of  the  electric  light,  his  greatest 
success.  In  the  first  place  it  must  be  made  clear 
that  Edison  does  not  consider  himself  as  the  dis- 
coverer nor  the  creator  of  the  incandescent  electric 
light.  He  does  claim,  and  in  this  the  courts  have 
upheld  him,  that  he  alone  succeeded  in  bringing 
into  harmonious  application  many  ideas  which 
had  been  commercially  valueless  when  separated. 

The  electric  light  bulb  was  used  in  1845  by 
King,  in  1846  by  Greener,  and  by  many  inventors 
prior  to  the  patents  of  Edison.  Yet  none  of  these 
had  succeeded  in  getting  an  electric  bulb  with  as 
high  a  vacuum  as  Edison.  Nor  could  they  have 
done  so,  for  Edison  himself  invented  many  improve- 
ments to  the  mercury  pump  for  exhausting  the 


134  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

bulbs.  Edison's  work  on  air-pumps,  therefore, 
was  essential  to  the  success  of  the  electric  light 
bulb.  In  a  way,  this  is  the  first  step.  Greener's 
bulb  was  true  in  principle  but  defective  in  opera- 
tion. It  could  not  be  made  effective  except  by 
improvement.  Sprengel's  pump  was  true  in  prin- 
ciple but  not  sufficiently  exact.  Edison  improved 
Sprengel's  pump,  then  directed  the  improved 
pump  to  the  old  principle  of  Greener's  bulb.  Here 
is  no  discovery,  but  true  invention,  and  invention 
directed  exclusively  upon  the  line  of  efficiency. 

Almost  the  same  condition  prevails  with  regard 
to  the  use  of  the  carbon  filament.  No  one  would 
deny,  Edison  least  of  all,  that  Starr  and  others 
had  used  a  carbon  pencil  in  a  partial  vacuum. 
But  though,  in  the  Goebel,  the  Sawyer-Mann  and 
other  cases,  the  earlier  examples  of  carbon  fila- 
ment lamps  were  brought  up,  the  fact  remained 
that  they  had  not  been  made  effective.  Goebel 
went  so  far  as  to  claim  that  he  had  even  discovered 
the  superiority  of  bamboo  before  1872,  but  the 
courts  ruled  the  evidence  out  as  inconclusive. 
The  point  again,  is  not  the  discovery  of  the  carbon 
filament,  but  the  inventive  development  which 
little  by  little  laid  the  ghosts  of  failure  and  which 
transformed  a  toy  of  the  laboratory  into  a  boon 
to  the  human  race. 


THE  POWER  BEHIND  THE  BULB         135 

Still  further  is  Edison  to  be  remembered  as  a 
master  electrical  engineer.  The  story  of  the 
electric  light  is  not  alone  the  story  of  the  vacuum 
bulb  and  of  the  carbon  filament,  it  is  the  story  of 
the  Central  Station.  It  is  the  story  of  the  ma- 
nipulator of  plans  to  bring  daylight  into  a  city's 
streets.  It  is  the  development  which  enables 
coal  mines  to  be  lighted  without  the  fear  of  explo- 
sion. It  is  the  story  which  has  made  fire  at  sea 
an  infrequent  occurrence.  For  Edison,  first,  last, 
and  all  the  time,  has  set  before  himself  the  task  of 
utilizing  to  their  greatest  capacity  the  forces  he 
has  developed. 

There  are  few  more  illuminating  things  than 
Edison's  own  point  of  view  on  such  matters.  To 
him  a  discovery  is  a  " scratch";  he  always  calls 
it  so.  Almost  any  clever  man,  he  is  wont  to  say, 
might  discover  something.  But  to  take  that 
"scratch,"  to  see  the  potentialities  that  lie  within 
it,  to  fix  upon  a  distant  goal  which  to  others  seems 
beyond  attainment,  and  to  work  persistently, 
patiently,  untiringly  for  that  goal,  overcoming 
every  obstacle  by  working  first  in  this  direction, 
then  in  that,  this,  to  him,  is  invention. 

Edison's  "twelve-million  dollar  brain"  is  a 
phrase  that  became  popular  when  the  four  leading 
Edison  companies  were  consolidated  into  one  con- 


136  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

cern,  known  as  the  General  Electric  Company, 
with  a  capitalization  of  twelve  million  dollars. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  inventions  that  have  pro- 
ceeded from  Edison  have  been  worth  vastly  more 
than  twelve  million  dollars  to  the  world. 

Yet,  when  the  entire  question  of  electric  light- 
ing is  analyzed,  it  is  clear  that  two  forces  and  two 
forces  alone  have  contributed  to  Edison's  success. 
Each  of  these  is  within  the  reach  of  almost  every 
intelligent  boy.  These  are  —  the  perception  of 
values,  and  hard  work.  It  is  of  no  use  to  perceive 
the  value  of  doing  a  thing  unless  one  works  hard 
at  it,  and  it  is  of  no  use  working  hard  at  a  thing 
unless  it  is  worth  the  doing. 

This  test  can  be  applied  universally  to  Edison's 
work.  There  is  no  case  on  record  in  his  whole  life 
when  he  devoted  his  time  to  an  object  that  lacked 
practical  usefulness,  and  there  is  no  one  thing 
which  he  deems  to  be  of  immediate  practical  need 
on  which  he  has  not  worked  hard.  He  has  not 
always  succeeded,  but  that  is  merely  to  say  that  he 
is  not  infallible. 


CHAPTER  X 

MAKING  A  SHRINE  FOR  SPEECH 

WHILE  the  electric  light  is  undoubtedly  Edi- 
son's greatest  gift  to  mankind,  his  most  unique 
one  is  the  phonograph.  The  earlier  claimants 
to  the  proud  title  of  "  Father  of  the  Telephone " 
were  two  Frenchmen,  Edouard-Leon  Scott  de 
Martinville,  who  in  1857  invented  a  "phonauto- 
graph,"  and  Charles  Cros,  who  in  1877  invented 
an  instrument  which  his  friend  the  Abbe  Leblanc 
called  —  creating  the  word  —  the  " phonograph." 

Scott's  device  was  of  the  crudest,  though  he 
succeeded  in  causing  his  phonautograph  to  render 
back  faint  sounds  from  the  blast  of  two  huge 
organ  pipes,  three  feet  from  the  instrument. 
But  Cros'  phonograph  was  far  more  scientific. 
Its  main,  and  utter,  difference  from  Edison's 
invention  was  that  instead  of  depending  on  inden- 
tations in  a  soft  substance  which  might  be  hard- 
ened, it  was  based  on  the  wavings  of  a  line  which 
an  index  finger  would  make  if  attached  to  a  dia- 
phragm caused  to  vibrate  by  the  sound-waves  of 
the  voice. 

137 


138  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

As  compared  with  these  two  early  ideas,  Edi- 
son's is  entirely  original.  This  invention  of  his 
was  born  with  him  absolutely.  He  is  the  dis- 
coverer as  well  as  the  inventor,  and  to  his  constant 
work  in  its  improvement,  the  phonograph  has 
come  to  be  the  almost  perfect  instrument  of  to-day. 

The  phonograph  was  not  due  to  any  happy  acci- 
dent. It  was  not  even  a  quick  idea  born  from  a 
sudden  thought.  It  came  to  its  inventor  as  a 
flash,  indeed,  but  only  after  long  thought  along 
that  very  line  and  during  experimentation  on  a 
line  that  was  closely  parallel. 

It  is  well  to  emphasize  this.  Many  inventors 
—  especially  young  ones  —  are  likely  to  think  of 
inventions  as  "  lucky  ideas  that  happen  to  strike 
it  right."  There  are  very  few  of  these  in  the  his- 
tory of  invention.  As  has  been  said  before,  an 
inventor  has  got  to  know  his  field  before  he  can  be 
sure  whether  an  idea  is  of  any  value,  and  he  has 
to  work  like  a  slave  to  perfect  the  idea. 

One  more  point  may  be  made  which  illustrates 
Edison's  extraordinary  genius.  It  is  that  he  never 
fritters  away  time.  He  never  wastes  time  on 
something  which  is  merely  interesting,  as  long 
as  there  is  something  of  value  to  be  done  in  per- 
fecting matters  which  have  already  shown  them- 
selves to  be  of  value  to  mankind. 


MAKING  A   SHRINE   FOR  SPEECH        139 

" What's  the  use?"  he  answered  a  visitor  one 
day,  when  his  caller  was  speaking  of  the  vast 
possibilities  as  yet  unexplored,  that  occur  as  sug- 
gestions here  and  there  in  his  volumes  of  "  Notion 
Books."  " What's  the  use?"  he  repeated.  "One 
lifetime  is  too  short,  and  I  am  busy  every  day 
improving  essential  parts  of  my  established  in- 
dustries." 

There  are  thousands  of  patents  in  the  Patent 
Office  which  would  bring  fame  and  fortune  to  their 
inventors,  if  the  men  who  had  devised  them  had 
given  as  much  time  to  their  application  to  indus- 
try as  they  did  to  their  invention.  Not  more 
than  one  quarter  of  Edison's  life  has  been  spent 
in  actually  inventing  new  devices,  the  other  three- 
quarters  has  gone  in  industrializing  them.  The 
value  of  an  invention  does  not  lie  in  what  it  is 
itself,  but  in  what  it  is  made  to  do. 

In  just  such  a  way,  the  phonograph  found  its 
real  beginning  in  the  fact  that  Edison  noticed  a 
humming  sound  coming  from  a  model  he  had  made 
while  experimenting  on  the  automatic  telegraph. 
He  paid  no  especial  attention  to  it  at  the  time,  but, 
like  all  subsidiary  events  occurring  during  experi- 
ment, it  sank  into  his  memory,  unconsciously. 

As  it  so  happened,  the  telephone  question  became 
of  supreme  importance  a  few  days  later,  and  Edi- 


140  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

son  was  unable  to  proceed  with  the  modification 
of  the  automatic  telegraph.  It  was  not  until 
years  later  that,  with  the  telephone  puzzles  solved, 
he  returned  to  the  automatic  telegraph,  his  desire 
being  to  invent  a  machine  which  would  repeat 
Morse  characters  that  had  been  recorded  on  paper 
by  indentations.  The  main  idea  was  that  this 
indented  paper  should  pass  under  a  tracing  point. 
This  point  was  connected  with  an  increaser,  which 
multiplied  its  movements,  and  this  again  was 
connected  with  a  telegraph-sending  apparatus. 
By  this  means,  a  message  received  at  a  given  office 
could  be  relayed  and  transmitted  automatically. 

In  returning  to  his  manipulation  of  this  machine, 
Edison  found  that,  when  the  cylinder  carrying 
the  indented  paper  was  turned  quickly,  it  gave 
out  a  sort  of  humming  noise.  Immediately  he 
remembered  a  somewhat  similar  experience  on 
an  earlier  model. 

Edison,  in  some  ways,  is  quite  hard  of  hearing, 
but  to  other  sounds  he  is  extraordinarily  susceptible, 
and  one  of  these  is  Morse.  It  seemed  to  him, 
then,  he  since  has  said,  that  the  humming  noise 
sounded  like  Morse  heard  indistinctly.  The  multi- 
plication of  small  sounds  to  great  ones  has  always 
been  a  pet  hobby  of  Edison's,  and  it  occurred  to 
him  that  this  humming  could  be  intensified.  Here 


MAKING  A  SHRINE   FOR  SPEECH        141 

was  the  second  clew,  which  also  registered  itself 
in  the  inventor's  mind,  and  then  lay  dormant. 

In  Dickson's  "  Edison,"  the  inventor  is  quoted 
as  giving  the  third  and  the  more  immediate  cause 
of  the  direction  of  his  attention  to  the  phonograph. 
The  statement  is  reported  as  follows : 

"I  was  singing  to  the  mouth-piece  of  a  tele- 
phone," Edison  is  quoted  as  saying,  "when  the 
vibrations  of  the  voice  sent  the  fine  steel  point 
into  my  finger.  That  set  me  thinking.  If  I 
could  record  the  actions  of  the  point  and  send 
the  point  over  the  same  surface  afterwards,  I 
saw  no  reason  why  the  thing  would  not  talk.  I 
tried  the  experiment  first  on  a  strip  of  telegraph 
paper.  I  shouted  the  words  'Hello!  Hello!' 
into  the  mouthpiece,  ran  the  paper  back  over  the 
steel  point,  and  heard  a  faint  'Hello!  Hello!'  in 
return.  I  determined  to  make  a  machine  that 
would  work  accurately,  and  gave  my  assistants 
instructions,  telling  them  what  I  had  discovered. 
They  laughed  at  me.  That's  the  whole  story.  The 
phonograph  is  the  result  of  the  pricking  of  a  finger." 

The  statement,  as  quoted,  is  interesting  and 
modest,  but  it  conveys  an  entirely  false  impres- 
sion. It  suggests  a  discovery  that  was  more  or 
less  of  a  "fluke."  Yet  it  was  nothing  of  the  kind. 
Edison  had  been  experimenting  for  years  on  the 


142  THOMAS   ALVA   EDISON 

telephone;  he  knew  as  much  about  sound  waves 
and  voice  vibrations  as  he  did  about  electricity, 
and  he  had  already  done  some  preparatory  work 
on  the  microphone.  The  question  of  voice  vibra- 
tions on  a  diaphragm  was  one  to  which  he  had 
given  years  of  thought,  and  he  could  instantly  tell 
the  amount  of  vibration  that  any  given  vowel  or 
consonantal  sound  would  give  to  a  diaphragm 
of  any  given  substance. 

When,  therefore,  Edison  attached  a  diaphragm 
to  the  machine  in  order  to  record  the  sounds,  and 
when  he  spoke  against  that  diaphragm,  he  was 
following  a  clear  line  of  reasoning.  When  to  this 
diaphragm  he  attached  a  mechanism  which  would 
multiply  the  vibration  sufficiently  to  indent  a 
given  material,  and  when  he  selected  paraffined 
paper  as  this  material,  every  step  was  the  result 
of  a  logical  process. 

The  inventor  sent  for  Krusei,  the  best  of  his 
early  model-makers,  gave  him  a  rough  sketch  of 
the  idea,  and  told  him  to  make  one.  It  is  of  in- 
terest to  know  that  the  price  Krusei  charged  was 
eight  dollars  and  that  it  took  him  thirty  hours 
without  sleep  to  build  it.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  he  brought  the  first  actual  working  phono- 
graph into  the  world,  a  clumsy-looking  affair,  now 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  in  London. 


MAKING  A  SHRINE  FOR  SPEECH        143 

Carman,  the  foreman  of  the  machine  shop,  was 
present  when  Krusei  brought  in  the  model.  On 
being  told  what  it  was  for,  he  declared  it  impossible, 
and  bluntly  bet  Edison  a  box  of  cigars  that  it 
wouldn't  work.  With  a  slow  smile,  Edison  took 
the  bet;  then,  sliding  the  model  along  the  table 
in  front  of  him,  he  turned  the  crank  slowly,  speak- 
ing into  the  receiver  the  first  verse  of  the  child- 
rhyme,  "Mary  had  a  little  lamb." 

The  cylinder  was  returned  to  the  starting  point 
again  and  the  handle  turned  once  more.  Then, 
very  faintly,  but  still  unmistakably,  came  back, 
"Ma'y  'ad  ..  'it'  'am,"  with  a  reminiscent  hint 
of  "his  Master's  voice"  in  it.  This  extraordinary 
success  with  a  first  model,  this  first  phonograph  in 
history,  was  ushered  into  the  world  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  a  disgusted  remark  from  the  foreman, 

"  Well,  I  guess  I've  lost  again !" 

So  far,  so  good,  but  when  it  came  to  perfecting 
the  phonograph,  the  difficulties  were  great.  De- 
veloping, as  it  did,  mainly  along  the  lines  of  pleas- 
ure-giving, it  was  necessary  that  the  phonograph 
should  attain  a  high  standard  of  perfection.  The 
actual  machinery  gave  little  trouble  —  indeed, 
the  phonograph  is  one  of  the  simplest  mechan- 
isms possible  —  but  the  records  were  another 
matter. 


144  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

The  tinfoil,  although  it  had  served  its  purpose 
faithfully  and  efficiently,  proved  worthless  as  a 
recorder.  It  did  not  retain  the  impression  accu- 
rately, and  after  being  used  once  or  twice,  was  use- 
less. Edison  turned  his  attention  to  some  other 
substance,  wax  naturally  suggesting  itself  to  him 
as  the  best. 

The  securing  of  wax  for  the  records  was  another 
case  similar  to  that  of  filaments  for  the  electric 
light.  Edison  bought  every  book  that  dealt 
with  animal  or  vegetable  fats  —  even  in  the  most 
remote  way  —  and  studied  them  all.  He  sent  for 
samples  of  every  known  fat  in  the  two  hemispheres. 
He  set  at  work  the  best  men  in  his  staff,  blending, 
mixing,  and  testing  hundreds  of  varieties ;  he 
engaged  special  chemists;  and  at  last  he  secured 
a  combination  of  waxes  that  answered  his  purpose. 
From  this,  excellent  records  were  made. 

In  Dyer  &  Martin's  "Life  of  Edison,"  the  in- 
ventor is  quoted  as  giving  the  story  of  how  the 
marvel  of  enshrining  the  voice  was  first  given  to 
the  world. 

"That  morning,"  the  account  reads,  "I  took 
it  [the  newborn  phonograph]  over  to  New  York, 
walked  into  the  office  of  the  Scientific  Ameri- 
can, went  up  to  Mr.  Beach's  desk,  and  said  I  had 
something  to  show  him.  He  asked  what  it  was. 


MAKING  A  SHRINE  FOR  SPEECH        145 

I  told  him  that  I  had  a  machine  which  would  record 
and  reproduce  the  human  voice. 

"I  opened  the  package,  set  up  the  machine, 
and  recited  'Mary  had  a  little  lamb/  etc.  Then 
I  reproduced  it  so  that  it  could  be  heard  all  over 
the  room.  They  kept  me  at  it  until  the  crowd 
got  so  great  that  Mr.  Beach  was  afraid  the  floor 
would  collapse. 

"The  papers,  next  morning,  contained  columns 
about  it.  None  of  the  writers  seemed  to  under- 
stand how  it  was  done.  I  tried  to  explain  it  to 
them,  it  was  so  very  simple,  but  the  results  were 
so  surprising  that  the  reporters  made  up  their 
minds  probably  that  they  never  would  under- 
stand it  —  and  they  didn't. 

"  For  a  long  time  some  people  thought  there  was 
trickery.  One  morning  at  Menlo  Park  a  gentle- 
man came  to  the  laboratory  and  asked  to  see  the 
phonograph.  It  was  Bishop  Vincent  ...  I  ex- 
hibited it,  and  then  he  asked  if  he  could  speak  a 
few  words.  I  put  on  a  fresh  foil  (this  was  in  the 
days  when  the  wax  was  as  yet  in  the  experimental 
stage)  and  told  him  to  go  ahead.  He  commenced 
to  recite  Biblical  names  with  immense  rapidity.  On 
reproducing  it,  he  said, '  I  am  satisfied  now.  There 
isn't  a  man  in  the  United  States  but  myself  who 
could  recite  those  names  with  the  same  rapidity.'" 


146  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

But  instead  of  being  a  piece  of  claptrap,  or 
even  a  nine-days'-wonder,  the  phonograph  ad- 
vanced with  giant  strides.  In  Europe  it  was  widely 
exhibited,  men  of  science  and  royalty  vying  with 
each  other  in  their  eagerness  to  hear  the  marvel- 
ous invention.  The  Paris  Exposition  of  1889 
confirmed  the  triumph  of  Edison  in  Europe. 
Forty  thousand  people  a  day  flocked  to  hear  the 
phonograph.  Its  success  was  complete. 

Again  the  situation  may  be  compared  to  that 
of  the  electric  light.  The  perfect  phonograph 
record,  like  the  perfect  light,  had  been  secured. 
But  it  was  costly  and  it  was  fragile.  Edison, 
who  never  lets  go  a  thing  until  it  is  put  on  a  prac- 
tical basis,  tried  every  device,  even  making  the 
cylinders  of  thin  paper  with  an  eighth  of  an  inch 
covering  of  wax.  This  reduced  their  cost  but 
increased  their  fragility,  and  considerable  care  had 
to  be  taken  in  handling  them. 

The  public  is  not  careful,  and  an  article  which 
is  to  be  much  used  has  got  to  withstand  a  certain 
amount  of  rough  usage.  Since  every  kind  of  wax 
had  been  tested,  Edison  discarded  wax  and  tried 
stearate  of  soda.  It  was  the  solution  of  all  his 
difficulties.  From  that  time  on,  numerous  changes 
have  been  made  in  phonograph  records,  the  chemi- 
cal composition  of  them  has  varied  from  time  to 


MAKING  A  SHRINE   FOR  SPEECH        147 

time,  but  the  principle  remains  unswervingly  the 
same. 

The  principle  of  the  phonograph  being  early 
established,  Edison  turned  his  attention  to  the 
electric  light,  and  for  several  years  little  was  done 
on  the  voice-recorder.  Its  perfecting  and  its 
introduction  as  a  commercial  asset,  therefore,  date 
after  the  incandescent  light.  Though  born  first, 
its  maturity  was  delayed. 

One  of  the  main  reasons  of  delay  was  the  pho- 
nograph's seemingly  incurable  habit  of  lisping. 
Thousands,  yes,  tens  of  thousands  of  records 
were  made  of  "Mary  had  a  little  lamb,  lamb, 
LAMB,  LAMB,"  and  not  a  few  of  them  are  deco- 
rated with  such  following  sentences  as,  "You 
gol-swingled  beast,  can't  you  say  LAMB!"  An- 
other word  of  which  the  very  walls  of  the  old 
buildings  must  have  got  tired  was  the  word 
"Spezia,"  used  innumerable  times  in  an  effort 
to  educate  those  early  phonographs  to  distinguish 
between  the  two  sounds  of  's,'  and  to  say  a  'p' 
properly. 

The  inventor's  conceptions  of  the  various  uses 
to  which  the  phonograph  would  be  put  are  of 
considerable  interest,  as  showing  the  ends  he 
sought  and  as  compared  with  the  actual  develop- 
ment that  has  occurred  in  the  nearly  forty  years 


148  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

since  the  first  phonograph  patent  was  secured.  In 
the  North  American  Review  in  1878,  he  wrote : 

"Among  the  many  uses  to  which  the  phonograph 
will  be  applied  are  the  following : 

"i.  Letter-writing  and  all  kinds  of  dictation 
without  the  aid  of  a  stenographer. 

"2.  Phonographic  books  which  will  speak  to 
blind  people  without  effort  on  their  part. 

"3.  The  teaching  of  elocution. 

"4.  The  reproduction  of  music. 

"5.  The  Family  Record  (a  registry  of  sayings, 
reminiscences,  etc.,  by  members  of  a  family,  in 
their  own  voices),  and  of  the  last  words  of  dying 
persons. 

"6.  Music  boxes  and  toys. 

"7.  Clocks  that  should  announce,  in  articulate 
speech,  the  time  for  going  home,  time  for  meals,  etc. 

"8.  The  preservation  of  languages  by  exact 
reproduction  of  the  manner  of  pronouncing. 

"9.  Educational  purposes,  such  as  preserving 
the  explanations  made  by  a  teacher,  so  that  the 
pupil  can  refer  to  them  at  any  moment;  and 
spelling  or  other  lessons  placed  upon  the  phono- 
graph for  convenience  in  committing  to  memory 

"10.  Connection  with  the  telephone,  so  as  to 
make  that  instrument  an  auxiliary  in  the  trans- 
mission of  permanent  and  invaluable  records, 


MAKING  A  SHRINE   FOR  SPEECH        149 

instead  of  being  the  recipient  of  momentary  and 
fleeting  communication." 

The  year  1888  was  phonograph  year.  The 
Patent  Office,  in  that  one  year  alone,  granted 
Edison  thirty  patents  on  improvements  connected 
with  the  phonograph.  The  wax  had  been  sub- 
stituted for  the  foil,  a  sapphire  point  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  steel  pencil,  and  the  reproducing 
"needles"  had  become  exceedingly  fine,  globe- 
pointed  devices. 

From  the  exceedingly  fine  details  required  in 
the  phonograph,  where  indentations  one-thou- 
sandth part  of  an  inch  make  all  the  difference 
between  the  various  tone  qualities  of  a  singing 
voice,  Edison's  attention  turned  to  matters  on  a 
large  scale.  His  next  years  of  effort  were  given 
to  his  great  magnetic  ore  separator.  This  was 
an  example  of  a  perfect  principle,  perfectly  applied, 
brought  to  perfection  by  Edison,  to  which  he  gave 
five  years  of  constant  thought  and  attention,  and 
which  ended  in  a  tremendous  monetary  loss.  To 
a  smaller  man,  the  result  would  have  been  nothing 
less  than  utter  ruin,  but  Edison's  only  comment  was, 

"Well,  the  money's  all  gone,  but  we  had  a 
whale  of  a  good  time  spending  it." 

The  origin  of  Edison's  connection  with  the 
magnetic  ore  separator  is  stated  to  be  the  washing 


150  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

in  of  a  patch  of  blackish  sand  on  the  seabeach 
at  Quogue,  L.I.  As  it  is  an  unfailing  rule  of 
Edison's  life  never  to  pass  a  new  thing,  and  always 
to  bring  to  his  great  storehouse  every  available 
substance,  the  "  Wizard  "  filled  his  pockets  with  the 
sand. 

When,  a  few  days  later,  he  returned  to  the 
laboratory,  thrusting  his  hand  into  his  pocket,  he 
found  the  sand,  which  he  promptly  emptied  out 
upon  the  laboratory  table.  On  this  table  there 
chanced  to  be  a  magnet  lying,  and  as  the  sand 
poured  near  the  magnet,  a  number  of  the  little 
black  grains  were  attracted  to  it.  Edison  at  once 
saw  that  the  magnet  separated  the  magnetic  from 
the  non-magnetic  particles,  and  his  mind  jumped 
to  the  possibility  of  using  this  in  practical  milling 
of  low-grade  ores,  or  ores  in  which  the  proportion 
of  valuable  and  magnetic  material  is  small. 

The  idea  was  not  precisely  new,  as,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  Gilbert,  that  extraordinary  scien- 
tist of  Queen  Elizabeth's  court,  suggested  that 
the  magnet  could  be  used  for  "  separating  the  pure 
from  the  impure, "  as  he  phrased  it.  But  Gilbert's 
prophecy  had  nothing  to  do  with  Edison's  planning. 
The  metallic  sand  lay  before  him.  Obviously,  if 
ore  could  be  crushed  into  particles  as  small  as 
that  sand,  they  could  be  separated.  Or,  if  the 


MAKING  A  SHRINE  FOR  SPEECH         151 

magnet  were  larger  and  more  powerful,  the  parti- 
cles need  not  be  quite  so  small.  There  was  the 
principle ;  the  working  of  it  out  was  only  a  matter 
of  experiment. 

Unfortunately  for  the  inventor,  this  was  not 
the  sort  of  thing  which  could  be  carried  out  on 
a  small  scale.  Innumerable  laboratory  tests  were 
made,  ores  were  shipped  in  from  all  parts  of  the 
world,  crushers  were  made  with  magnets  in  pro- 
portion to  their  size.  Certain  ores  were  found 
more  or  less  refractory,  but  still  all  of  them  could 
be  brought  into  their  proper  relations.  The 
laboratory  test  was  conclusive,  the  problem  was 
solved,  and  hundreds  of  millions  of  tons  of  metal- 
liferous rocks,  which  had  been  deemed  too  low- 
grade  for  mining,  immediately  became  available. 

Had  Edison  stopped  there,  had  he  taken  out 
patents  on  his  inventions  and  the  ideas  for  ma- 
chinery connected  with  it,  he  would  have  been  the 
richer  by  half  a  million  dollars  and  the  world  would 
have  gained  almost  five  years  of  the  inventor's 
time.  But  Edison,  in  his  characteristic  way, 
wished  to  establish  his  invention  as  a  commercial 
industry.  He  had  done  this  with  the  electric 
light,  he  had  done  this  with  his  duplex  telegraph, 
while  other  of  his  inventions  he  had  sold  in  such 
a  way  that  they  were  commercially  gainful,  and  he 


152  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

desired  to  place  his  magnetic  milling  on  the  same 
basis  of  advantage. 

With  his  accustomed  concentration,  Edison 
set  his  mind  resolutely  to  the  problem.  No  ma- 
chinery existed  which  contemplated  the  crushing 
of  the  hardest  rocks  to  powder,  and  the  inventor 
had  to  plan  all  these.  A  few  of  the  devices  were 
machines  in  general  use  carried  to  a  finer  scale; 
some  were  modifications  of  existing  machines; 
but  the  string  of  patents  taken  out  in  Edison's 
name  in  connection  with  ore-milling  machinery 
shows  to  how  large  an  extent  his  inventive  powers 
were  devoted  to  this  end  alone.  Under  his  fertile 
mechanical  planning,  a  marvelous  metallurgical 
plant  was  built.  A  big  tract  of  land  in  Sullivan 
County  was  the  scene  of  operations,  and  around 
the  milling  plant  grew  up  a  small  town  of  over 
two  hundred  houses.  All  these  were  modern, 
equipped  with  electric  light  and  conveniences 
strange  to  so  small  a  place. 

From  the  inventor's  point  of  view  the  experi- 
ment was  thoroughly  successful.  Scarcely  an  ore 
of  any  consequence  was  found  to  fail,  and  in  the 
five  years,  practically  every  detail  was  finished 
and  every  obstacle  overcome.  But  Edison  was 
not  fortunate  in  his  commercial  appeal.  Capital 
did  not  pledge  itself  readily  to  the  work,  the  ship- 


MAKING  A   SHRINE   FOR  SPEECH        153 

ping  facilities  to  the  ore-milling  plant  were  poor, 
and  the  organization  necessary  to  extend  the  new 
metallurgical  system  throughout  the  country  would 
have  taken  all  of  Edison's  time.  It  would  have 
made  a  good  life  work  for  most  men,  but  Edison's 
brain  was  too  multifold  for  him  to  remain  per- 
petually at  milling.  One  day  he  closed  down  the 
mine. 

No  one  lives  now  at  "Edison/'  and  the  miners' 
cottages  still  stand  there,  falling  into  decay.  Many 
of  the  buildings  are  in  ruins  and  the  machinery 
has  rusted  in  the  pits  where  it  stood.  The  proj- 
ect, as  a  business  venture,  was  a  failure,  but  in 
Australia  and  in  Norway,  in  the  Andes  and  in  the 
Himalayas,  are  mines  where  magnetic  ore  sepa- 
rators are  at  work.  The  "Wizard's"  ore  works 
are  shut  down,  but  his  wizardry  continues  un- 
broken. 

There  is  a  very  decided  hint  of  the  combination 
of  stoicism  and  the  love  of  work  which  has  de- 
scended to  him  from  his  Dutch  ancestry  in  Edison's 
comment  on  the  ore-milling  work,  when  years 
later,  telling  his  reminiscences  of  that  time,  he 
said: 

"I  never  felt  better  in  my  life  than  during  the 
five  years  I  worked  there.  Hard  work,  nothing 
to  divert  my  thoughts,  clear  air  and  simple  food 


154  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

made  my  life  very  pleasant.  We  learned  a  great 
deal.  It  will  be  of  benefit  to  some  one  some  time." 

How  much  of  the  interpretation  of  Edison's 
character  lies  in  that  phrase,  "We  learned  a  great 
deal"!  To  the  inventor,  then  verging  toward 
fifty  years  of  age,  the  value  of  five  years  of  pains- 
taking and  arduous  toil  found  sufficient  reward  in 
the  knowledge  that  "We  learned  a  great  deal." 
It  is  the  clew  to  his  combined  simplicity  and 
greatness. 

Much  of  the  machinery  devised  by  Edison  for 
the  purpose  of  crushing  ore  into  powder  is  still 
used  by  him  in  his  cement  works  at  Stewartsville, 
New  Jersey.  The  works  cover  eight  hundred 
acres  of  ground. 

As  a  natural  sequence  to  his  development  of  the 
cement  industry,  Edison  thought  of  plans  whereby 
concrete  might  be  turned  to  new  uses.  Being 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  high  cost  of  lumber, 
in  connection  with  the  building  of  one  of  his 
plants,  he  thought  of  the  extension  of  the  use  of 
concrete  as  a  building  material.  It  was  a  matter 
to  which  he  returned  from  time  to  time,  and  in 
odd  intervals  perfected  the  plan.  It  is  now  pos- 
sible to  "build"  an  Edison  concrete,  ten-room 
house,  weather-proof,  almost  bomb-proof,  in  four 
days.  A  steel  mold  is  made  into  which  the  con- 


MAKING  A  SHRINE  FOR  SPEECH        155 

crete  is  pumped,  allowed  to  harden,  and  the  mold 
then  removed.  The  window-frames  are  made  in 
the  same  way.  Hundreds  of  these  houses  have 
been  constructed  and  have  proved  satisfactory. 

Allied  in  some  respects  to  the  idea  of  the  mag- 
netic separation  of  ores  is  Edison's  invention  of  the 
pyro-magnetic  motor  and  the  pyro-magnetic  gen- 
erator. Both  of  these  are  a  modern  application 
of  an  ancient  principle,  also  mentioned  by  Gilbert, 
the  ''Father  of  Magnetism,"  in  the  seventeenth 
century ;  namely,  the  diminution  of  the  magnetic 
power  in  iron  when  hot.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
after  iron  is  heated  slightly  above  the  point  of 
'cherry'  heat,  the  magnet  has  no  influence  on  it 
whatsoever. 

In  Edison's  pyro-magnetic  motor,  a  pivoted 
bar  is  heated  and  cooled  by  turns,  being  strongly 
influenced  by  the  magnet  when  cold,  and  unaffected 
when  hot,  the  alternation  giving  rise  to  the  rotary 
motion.  Upon  the  same  lines  was  constructed 
his  pyro-magnetic  generator,  with  the  end  in  view 
of  producing  electricity  from  coal. 

Along  this  latter  line  of  experimentation,  Edi- 
son's mind  has  been  occupied  for  several  years. 
He  regards  it  as  the  most  important  problem  of  the 
age.  The  great  inventor  has  laid  aside  many 
commercial  ventures,  at  times,  to  concentrate 


156  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

on  this  one  problem.  He  has  made  considerable 
progress,  but  not  sufficient  to  justify  him  in  re- 
vealing his  experiments. 

Of  the  tremendous  force  hidden  in  coal,  a  trifle 
less  than  fifteen  per  cent  is  used,  the  remaining 
eighty-five  per  cent  being  wasted.  Combustion 
of  coal,  especially  with  the  machinery  with  which 
it  is  now  used,  is,  to  Edison's  economics,  wasteful 
to  excess.  If  electricity  could  be  generated  direct 
from  coal,  the  problem  of  the  world's  power  would 
practically  be  solved,  steam  would  become  obso- 
lete, and  electricity  would  reign  supreme. 


CHAPTER  XI 

"MOVIES,"   AND   THE   STORAGE   BATTERY 

JUST  as  the  old  game  of  "rounders"  is  the 
foundation  of  the  national  game  of  baseball,  which 
fills  the  thoughts  of  every  American  boy  and 
many  million  American  men  from  spring  till  fall, 
so  the  zoetrope  was  the  forerunner  of  the  moving 
picture  of  to-day.  But  the  whole  business  of 
"moving  pictures"  is  so  large,  and  requires  so 
many  things  for  its  full  use,  that  to  no  one  man 
can  be  ascribed  its  sole  origin.  It  may  justly  be 
said,  however,  that  in  the  ultimate  development  of 
the  cinematograph  and  biograph  to  completeness, 
Edison's  kinetoscope  has  played  an  important  part. 

To  Edison,  "king  of  speed"  as  he  has  been  called, 
the  development  of  instantaneous  photography 
afforded  an  opportunity  for  investigation  and 
experimentation  that  appealed  tremendously  to 
the  imaginative  side  of  his  nature.  He  saw  how 
this  could  be  applied  to  Plateau's  "phenakisto- 
scope"  of  1833,  to  the  improved  zoetrope,  invented 
by  Raynaud  in  1870,  which  he  called  the  "praxino- 

157 


158  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

scope,"  and  especially  to  Muybridge's  "zoopraxi- 
scope" in  1877. 

Edward  Muybridge,  an  American,  was  the 
first  to  apply  photography  to  the  zoetrope  idea. 
In  1877  he  placed  a  series  of  cameras  at  regular 
intervals  opposite  an  inclined  white  reflecting 
surface.  A  fine  thread  was  stretched  from  the 
shutter  of  each  camera  to  the  screen,  and  a  horse 
was  trotted  in  front  of  the  battery  of  cameras. 
As  he  trotted  along,  he  broke  each  of  the  threads 
in  turn,  and  these  operated  the  shutters,  giving  a 
series  of  plates  showing  the  horse's  posture  at  the 
moment  of  exposure.  To  project  these,  Muy- 
bridge  invented  his  "zoopraxiscope,"  in  which 
the  positives,  fastened  to  a  large  revolving  disk, 
were  whirled  in  succession  in  front  of  a  " magic" 
lantern. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  three  men  who  worked 
independently  on  this  problem  at  this  time  were 
all  naturalists.  Just  as  Muybridge  was  interested 
in  his  " zoopraxiscope,"  because  his  hobby  was  the 
horse,  so  Stephen  Marey,  of  France,  adopted  a 
somewhat  similar  device  with  a  "photographic 
gun"  for  studying  the  flight  of  birds.  Demeny, 
a  pupil  of  his,  used  the  same  device  for  reproducing 
the  movements  of  a  speaker's  lips,  so  that  deaf  mutes 
could  read  " sentences  written  by  photography." 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  159 

Anschutz,  in  Germany,  a  naturalist  of  more 
general  range,  developed  a  more  improved  machine, 
on  the  same  principle,  which  he  called  the  "tachy- 
scope."  In  this  the  positives  were  made  right  on 
a  glass  disk.  When  this  was  rotated,  each  picture, 
as  it  came  before  the  opening,  was  lighted  by  a 
spark  from  a  vacuum  tube,  giving  a  sharp,  clear 
image. 

The  invention  of  the  celluloid  film  in  place  of 
the 'old  glass  plate  made  true  "moving  pictures" 
possible.  The  "father"  of  the  craft,  without 
much  doubt,  was  W.  Friese-Greene  of  England, 
who  took  out  a  patent  in  1882,  nine  years  before 
the  appearance  of  the  Edison  kinetoscope.  His 
machine  was  quite  efficient,  his  patent  called  for 
a  long  strip  of  celluloid  film,  and  he  publicly  ex- 
hibited moving  pictures  that  had  been  taken  by 
him. 

In  going  on  to  show  the  part  that  Edison  has 
played  in  the  development  of  moving  pictures, 
it  is  necessary  to  point  out  the  great  difference 
between  this  invention  and  every  other  on  which 
he  has  worked.  In  the  phonograph,  the  sound 
waves  received  are  continuous,  in  the  moving  pic- 
ture camera  and  projector  the  light  waves  are  dis- 
continuous, or  made  of  a  series  of  pictures  thrown 
on  a  screen  in  rapid  succession. 


160  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

This  is  only  possible  because  the  human  eye 
needs  to  see  a  certain  scene  for  a  given  length  of 
time  before  it  really  is  perceived.  This  is  known 
as  "persistence  of  vision."  An  impression  re- 
ceived by  the  eye  cannot  be  instantly  replaced 
by  another,  but  will  remain  for  one  twenty-fourth 
part  of  a  second,  and  will  gradually  fade  out,  being 
quite  obliterated,  after  another  twenty-fourth  part 
of  a  second,  or  it  will  persist  for  one  twelfth  of  a 
second  in  all.  For  example,  if  we  were  looking 
at  the  piston  of  an  engine  at  rest,  and  it  darted 
out  and  in  to  the  same  point  of  rest,  its  entire 
movement  being  performed  in  less  than  the  twenty- 
fourth  part  of  a  second,  we  could  not  have  seen 
it  move  at  all.  A  fly's  wings  beat  more  rapidly 
than  twenty-four  times  a  second,  consequently 
we  never  perceive  them,  we  only  see  a  blur.  A 
bird's  wings  beat  less  rapidly  than  this  period  of 
persistence  of  vision,  and  therefore  we  can  see 
them  flutter. 

If,  therefore,  pictures  can  be  thrown  on  a  screen 
in  front  of  the  eye  so  quickly  that  the  change 
comes  in  less  than  this  twelfth  part  of  a  second, 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  see  the  change.  Moving 
pictures  are  projected  at  the  rate  of  a  fifteenth  of 
a  second.  This  gives  time  for  the  picture  to  be 
seen,  for  the  fraction  of  a  second's  eclipse  between 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  161 

one  picture  and  the  next,  and  for  the  second  pic- 
ture to  appear  before  the  impression  of  the  first  is 
gone.  As  the  second  picture  fits  over  the  first, 
with  an  incredibly  small  change,  it  appears  to  the 
eye  as  moving. 

With  the  combined  discovery  of  the  gelatine- 
bromide  sensitive  preparation,  and  the  celluloid 
film,  it  was  possible  to  take  pictures  with  great 
rapidity.  When,  late  in  the  eighties,  Edison 
turned  his  attention  to  the  question  of  the  kineto- 
scope,  he  knew  nothing  whatever  about  photog- 
raphy. Even  for  amusement  he  had  never  taken 
a  snapshot,  never  developed  a  plate.  But  no 
sooner  did  he  get  started  on  the  idea  of  reproducing 
movement  as  he  had  reproduced  sound,  than  he 
saw  that  he  must  master  photography  if  he  would 
succeed.  He  worked  early  and  late,  his  fondness 
for  chemistry  aiding  him  greatly  in  the  technicali- 
ties of  sensitive  preparations  for  photographic 
plates. 

In  order  to  secure  absolute  efficiency,  Edison 
realized  that  the  pictures  would  have  to  be  taken 
exceedingly  rapidly,  about  fifty  a  second,  if  they 
were  to  seem  life-like  and  if  there  was  to  be  avoid- 
ance of  jerking  when  thrown  on  a  screen.  This 
required  a  camera  with  an  action  rapid  enough 
to  operate  the  shutter  and  to  move  the  film,  and 


1 62  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

also  a  film  sensitive  enough  to  light  to  receive  a 
brilliant  impression  in  one  fiftieth  of  a  second. 

None  of  the  films  in  the  market  were  satisfactory 
to  Edison,  indeed,  none  of  them  could  do  precisely 
what  he  wanted.  Accordingly  he  opened  a  photo- 
graphic laboratory,  and  after  a  series  of  experi- 
ments as  costly  as  they  were  exhausting,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  films  sufficiently  rapid  for  his 
purpose. 

The  details  of  the  mechanism  of  the  taking 
camera  and  the  projector  troubled  the  inventor 
but  little;  fertile  expedients  always  suggested 
themselves  readily  to  him,  and  the  perfected 
kinetoscope  in  1891  was  the  result.  In  his  charac- 
teristic way,  Edison  thought  mainly  of  the  kineto- 
scope on  a  larger  basis.  He  saw  its  value  for 
educational  purposes,  and  its  great  mission  as 
a  recorder  of  important  events. 

In  April,  1895,  Lumiere  in  Paris,  and  Acres  in 
London,  produced  machines  which  were  practical 
in  every  way,  yet  which  had  distinct  features  of 
their  own.  The  quick  French  mind  saw  the 
possibilities  of  the  cinematograph,  as  it  was  there 
called,  and  the  frugal  French  mind  realized  that 
a  vast  amount  of  amusement  could  be  secured  for 
a  few  sous.  With  what  can  be  described  as 
nothing  less  than  a  whirlwind  of  approval,  the 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  163 

moving  picture  swept  through  France,  and  through 
Italy,  a  scarcely  less  rapid  development  proceed- 
ing in  England  meanwhile. 

Edison,  thinking  more  of  the  perfection  of  the 
kinetoscope  than  merely  of  making  films  which 
would  sell,  continued  his  work  at  Orange,,  New 
Jersey,  and  patent  after  patent  was  filed  by  him, 
covering  more  and  ever  more  improvements  on 
the  kinetoscope.  It  was  a  race  between  Europe 
and  America;  and  when  at  last  the  European 
" movie"  companies  entered  the  United  States, 
they  found  the  Edison  kinetoscope  fully  established. 

So  huge  were  the  proportions  to  which  the 
business  grew,  that  Edison,  satisfied  with  his 
work  in  laying  a  sure  foundation  for  the  great 
new  art  of  the  photo-drama,  kept  his  studios  at 
work  supplying  high-class  films  for  the  commercial 
exchanges,  and  turned  to  other  features  of  the  work. 

The  inventor  believed  for  some  years  —  indeed 
still  believes  —  that  the  phonograph  and  the 
kinetoscope  should  be  allied.  In  1907  he  pre- 
dicted that  the  time  was  not  far  distant  when 
Grand  Opera  would  be  given  by  a  combined 
phonograph  and  moving  picture  so  completely 
paralleling  actual  performance  that  it  would 
deceive  good  critics.  Many  public  performances 
with  the  "phonocinematograph"  were  given  be- 


1 64  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

tween  1910  and  1912,  but  absolute  exactness  of 
register  was  difficult  to  obtain. 

There  were  two  main  obstacles,  or  "bugs,"  as 
the  inventor  calls  them.  The  first  of  these  was 
in  the  recording,  the  second  in  the  projecting. 
In  the  recording,  it  was  found  that  the  moving 
picture  camera  recorded  the  actions  of  the  per- 
formers before  the  sound  of  their  voices  reached 
the  phonograph.  This  was,  firstly,  because  light 
travels  more  quickly  than  sound,  and  secondly, 
because  the  chemical  action  of  light  on  a  sensitive 
plate  is  faster  than  the  mechanical  action  of  sound- 
waves on  a  diaphragm. 

So  when  the  villain  says,  "Be  mine  or  you  shall 
die!"  stabs  the  heroine,  and  jumps  over  the 
castle  wall,  it  is  disturbing  to  have  him  jump  over 
the  castle  wall  before  he  has  said  anything  to  the 
heroine.  What  was  more,  certain  vowel  sounds 
registered  quickly,  others  more  slowly,  so  that 
speeding  the  phonograph  a  little  ahead  of  the 
projector  (which  was  tried)  failed  to  produce  the 
required  result. 

The  second  difficulty  was  that  of  making  the 
phonograph  reproduction  and  the  moving  picture 
operate  in  exact  harmony.  The  phonograph  had 
to  be  on  the  stage  so  that  the  voices  might  seem 
to  come  from  the  pictured  actors,  the  projector 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  165 

had  to  be  at  the  back  of  the  theater  so  that  the 
pictures  could  be  projected  on  the  screen.  Minor 
difficulties  of  synchronization  became  very  real 
ones  when  put  to  rigid  test.  But  these  difficulties 
do  not  mean  that  Edison  has  set  the  matter  aside. 
Not  at  all;  they  await  an  opportunity  of  settle- 
ment, that  is  all.  In  the  spring  of  1915  a  young 
Chicago  inventor  patented  a  device  which  goes 
far  to  fill  this  gap,  but  which  needs  yet  further 
improvement  to  be  practicable. 

A  large  proportion  of  Edison's  early  films  were 
industrial,  for  the  inventor  believes  thoroughly 
in  a  proper  understanding  of  commerce  and  in- 
dustry. Some  of  the  films  in  which  he  took  the 
greatest  pride  were  pictures  showing  factories  in 
operation,  where,  from  a  piece  of  crude  ore,  the 
iron  is  made,  the  steel  forged  and  fashioned  into 
a  steel  rail  for  a  railroad.  Or,  again,  he  likes  a 
film  where  every  detail  is  shown  in  the  blowing 
of  a  glass  electric  light  bulb.  These  films  are  in 
high  demand.  Many  factories  use  them  as  part 
of  the  education  of  new  employees. 

This  interest  in  commerce  and  things  com- 
mercial has  caused  Edison  to  devote  his  inventive 
genius  at  various  times  to  devices  for  helping  the 
business  man.  Such  was  the  electric  pen,  which 
consisted  of  a  hollow  wooden  tube,  the  size  and 


1 66  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

shape  of  an  ordinary  penholder,  fitted  with  a  steel 
shaft.  At  the  head  of  the  shaft  was  a  tiny  motor, 
and  the  point  was  a  steel  needle.  When  attached 
to  a  battery  by  flexible  wires,  the  needle  point 
vibrated  so  rapidly  that  a  continuous  series  of 
dots  was  made  with  the  motions  of  ordinary  writing. 
A  stencil  was  thus  made  from  which  any  number 
of  copies  could  be  run  off.  As  a  wag  once  said, 

"It  works  like  a  man  was  writing  with  a  wasp, 
holding  the  wasp's  business  end  to  the  paper!" 

The  mimeograph,  which,  as  now  adopted  for 
use  on  typewriters,  is  also  to  be  seen  in  thousands 
of  business  houses ;  it  is  one  of  Edison's  inventions. 
It  has  saved  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars  in  the  issuance  of  circular  letters. 

Of  the  same  character  is  the  dictating  machine, 
a  development  of  the  phonograph,  which,  with 
its  1914  improvement  of  the  transophone,  has 
already  been  described.  These,  however,  are 
classed  by  Edison  among  his  " lesser  inventions/' 
such  as  vocal  engines,  which  will  saw  a  hole  through 
a  board  by  the  mere  force  of  talking  into  them ; 
typewriters,  for  the  "Wizard"  was  one  of  the 
earliest  to  work  on  this  invaluable  asset  to  the 
commercial  world;  methods  of  preserving  fruit; 
making  of  plate  glass ;  details  of  iron  manufacture ; 
wire-drawing,  and  a  host  of  other  things. 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  167 

Edison's  connection  with  electric  railroading 
should  be  mentioned.  The  first  American  electric 
locomotive  was  run  in  April  29,  1857,  by  Professor 
C.  C.  Page,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institute,  the  trip 
being  taken  over  the  tracks  of  the  Washington  and 
Baltimore  Railroad.  A  speed  of  nineteen  miles  an 
hour  was  attained,  the  motive  power  being  one 
hundred  cells  of  Grove  nitric-acid  battery,  each 
having  a  platinum  plate  eleven  inches  square. 
The  cost,  of  course,  was  prohibitive,  and  while 
the  trial  trip  succeeded,  in  a  measure,  the  batteries 
were  reduced  to  junk-heap  material  in  the  less 
than  two  hours  that  the  trip  consumed. 

The  first  electric  railroad  in  America,  however, 
certainly  the  first  regularly  to  carry  passengers 
and  freight,  was  Edison's  at  Menlo  Park.  In  this 
railroad,  which  was  about  half  a  mile  in  extent, 
the  current  was  furnished  from  the  laboratory, 
passing  into  the  rails,  which  were  pitched  high, 
and  thoroughly  insulated  from  the  ground.  The 
current  entered  one  rail,  passed  up  through  the 
wheels  of  the  locomotive  —  which  themselves  were 
insulated  from  the  shaft  —  thence  to  the  motor  and 
out  to  the  opposite  rail  through  the  other  wheel. 

Edison  then  made  a  contract  with  Henry  Villard, 
of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway.  This  was,  that 
if  the  inventor  could  construct  a  railway  at  least 


1 68  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

two  and  a  half  miles  in  length,  equipped  with  two 
locomotives  and  three  cars,  one  of  these  locomotives 
to  be  built  for  freight  haulage  and  strength,  the 
other  for  passenger  service  and  speed,  and  the 
passenger  locomotive  could  develop  sixty  miles 
an  hour,  then  Villard  would  reimburse  Edison 
for  all  cost  of  experiment,  and  would  install  the 
system  on  parts  of  his  road  in  the  wheat  fields  of 
the  far  Northwest.  While  the  experiments  were 
proceeding,  Villard's  fortune  went  to  pieces  in 
the  Northern  Pacific  Railway  crash. 

Meantime  Siemens  and  Halske,  both  of  Ger- 
many, had  built  and  equipped  electric  railroads 
of  a  high  degree  of  efficiency,  and  Stephen  D.  Field, 
an  American,  had  conceived  the  idea  of  the  third 
rail.  Both  Siemens  and  Field  attacked  Edison's 
position,  claiming  infringements  of  their  patents. 
Siemens'  claim  was  set  aside  and  Edison  and  Field 
joined  forces,  putting  into  operation  an  electric 
railway  at  the  Chicago  Railway  Exposition.  Edi- 
son was  anxious  to  continue  his  work  along  this 
line,  but  so  many  other  matters  intervened  that 
he  was  compelled  to  set  that  phase  of  experimen- 
tation aside. 

This  was  no  time  for  delays.  All  over  the  world, 
electrical  engineers  were  working  on  the  question 
of  transportation.  Van  Depoele,  a  Belgian,  and 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  169 

Sprague,  an  ex-lieu  tenant  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  were  to  the  fore,  and  long  before  Edison 
had  time  to  return  to  the  fray,  electric  trolleys 
had  become  thoroughly  established,  and  electric 
railroading  was  well  in  hand. 

Although  so  many  minds  had  been  working  on 
the  transportation  problem,  especially  with  the 
storage  battery,  they  had  not  been  successful. 
Edison  always  believed  —  and  now  has  proved 
—  that  the  storage  battery  could  be  brought  to  a 
high  point  of  efficiency.  To  F.  R.  Beach,  at  the 
time  superintendent  of  the  Street  Railway  De- 
partment of  the  General  Electric  Company,  he 
once  said,  plaintively, 

"I  don't  think  Nature  would  be  so  unkind  as 
to  withhold  the  secret  of  a  good  storage  battery, 
if  a  real  earnest  hunt  for  it  was  made.  I'm  going 
to  hunt." 

The  hunt  took  six  years.  In  1906  the  Edison 
storage  battery  had  reached  the  point  where  less 
than  one  and  one  half  per  cent  was  imperfect. 
Yet  two  years  of  unceasing  work  followed  before 
this  small  amount  of  imperfection  was  removed. 
Time  and  again  statements  were  made  that  in 
the  storage  battery  the  "Wizard"  was  facing  a 
fiasco.  The  temptation  to  deny  the  story  was 
strong,  the  opportunity  to  tell  what  had  already 


170  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

been  achieved  was  great.  Still  Edison  stuck  to 
his  one  invariable  rule  — 

"Say  nothing  till  you've  got  it  right !" 

The  early  storage  batteries  were  successful,  save 
for  a  small  percentage,  and  thousands  of  orders 
came  for  more  batteries.  But  Edison  refused  to 
sell.  He  felt  that  a  percentage  of  imperfect 
batteries,  no  matter  how  small,  would  become 
cumulative,  hurt  his  reputation,  and  cripple  busi- 
ness in  the  perfect  battery,  when  it  should  be 
completed. 

The  Edison  storage  battery,  among  all  his  in- 
ventions, is  the  least  empirical.  The  stiffest  hill 
to  climb  in  the  manufacture  of  a  perfect  battery 
was  devising  the  "accumulator,"  that  portion  of  the 
battery  in  which  the  "juice"  is  stored.  The  other 
difficulty  was  to  get  the  battery  down  in  weight. 

Edison's  manner  of  attacking  the  problem  was 
thoroughly  typical  of  all  his  methods.  He  began 
by  getting  hold  of  every  type  of  storage  cell  that 
had  ever  been  made  or  thought  of,  and  analyzing 
the  defects.  He  hoped  that  some  device  modify- 
ing one  of  these  types  could  serve  the  purpose. 
None  would.  Every  single  one  had  a  defect  so 
fundamental  that  Edison  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  not  possible  to  work  along  this  line. 
A  new  ideal  had  to  be  made. 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  171 

The  use  of  lead,  largely  because  of  its  weight, 
was  to  be  avoided.  The  exclusion  of  lead  sug- 
gested the  setting  aside  of  the  acid  solution,  using 
an  alkaline  electrolyte  instead.  Half  a  year  of 
patient  experimentation  with  every  metal  and 
nearly  all  metallic  compounds  known,  gradually 
brought  to  light  the  fact  that,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  theory  of  the  thing,  iron  and  nickel 
were  the  metals  desired. 

This  was  the  beginning.  After  over  six  thousand 
experiments  —  designed  to  find  out  the  exact 
condition  of  activity  of  these  metals  when  acted 
upon  by  the  solution  —  the  right  processes  were 
gradually  evolved.  The  difficulty  lay  in  the  ne- 
cessity for  the  development  of  the  two  metals  to 
go  on  at  exactly  the  same  rate  of  speed.  Finally,  ex- 
actly the  right  solution  of  potash  was  worked  out. 

An  Edison  cell  of  the  second  period  of  develop- 
ment consists  of  steel  plates  containing  oxide  of 
iron  and  oxide  of  nickel,  immersed  in  a  solution  of 
potash.  With  the  charging  of  the  battery,  the 
iron  oxide  is  reduced  to  metallic  iron  and  the  freed 
oxygen  is  absorbed  by  the  nickel  oxide.  When 
the  battery  is  discharged,  the  oxygen  absorbed 
by  the  nickel  passes  through  the  liquid  to  the 
metallic  iron  and  oxidizes  it  back  to  its  original 
state. 


172  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

In  the  words  of  F.  A.  Jones,  "  the  oxygen  burns  the 
iron,  but  instead  of  getting  heat,  we  get  electricity 
as  a  substitute.  It  is  a  species  of  internal  combus- 
tion in  which  the  oxygen  is  stored  up  in  the  nickel 
to  burn  the  iron.  There  is  no  other  reaction.  The 
simple  metallic  elements  are  iron,  nickel  and  steel." 

Edison  has  gone  on  perfecting  his  storage  battery, 
and  his  inventions  on  it  are  numerous.  Most  of 
them,  however,  are  along  his  accustomed  line  of 
making  the  invention  commercially  practicable. 
The  storage  battery  problem  was  solved  scien- 
tifically in  1903.  Commercially  it  is  not  yet 
entirely  solved.  Thus  in  1908,  a  special  machine 
was  invented  by  Edison  to  make  tubes  about  the 
size  of  a  lead  pencil  in  which  to  pack  the  nickel. 

Still  more  recently  the  "nickel  flake"  was  in- 
vented, and  the  process  is  so  ingenious  that  it 
may  well  be  told.  It  is  obtained  by  electroplating 
upon  a  metallic  cylinder  alternate  layers  of  copper 
and  nickel,  one  hundred  layers  of  each.  After 
this  is  done,  the  combined  sheet  is  stripped  from 
the  cylinder,  being  then  only  about  the  thickness 
of  the  edge  of  a  visiting  card.  It  is  cut  in  squares 
one  sixteenth  of  an  inch  in  size,  and  then  dropped 
in  a  bath  which  dissolves  away  the  copper  but 
leaves  the  nickel  unaffected,  so  that  the  plates  or 
flakes  of  nickel  float  apart.  When  dried,  these 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  173 

flakes  of  heavy  metal  are  so  extraordinarily  thin 
that  they  will  float  in  the  air  like  the  feathered 
down  that  comes  from  a  dandelion. 

The  accumulator,  that  bugbear  of  the  storage 
battery  in  practical  usefulness,  was  made  simple 
and  effective  by  Edison's  discovery  of  the  value 
of  cobalt  as  the  material  for  the  condenser.  Co- 
balt, however,  had  been  found  only  in  small 
quantities.  To  Edison's  mind  this  meant  nothing. 
Either  cobalt  could  not  be  found  in  large  quan- 
tities, in  which  case  it  was  useless  for  him  to 
experiment  further  with  it,  for  it  could  not  be 
made  commercially  profitable,  or  —  it  could  be 
found.  In  the  latter  case,  found  it  had  to  be! 

In  the  same  way  that  the  inventor  had  sent 
men  all  over  the  world  to  find  the  bamboo  which 
could  be  used  for  the  carbon  filament  of  the  elec- 
tric light,  in  the  same  way  that  he  had  set  a  horde 
of  chemists  at  work  testing  wax  for  the  phono- 
graph cylinder,  so  to  every  corner  of  America  did 
Edison  distribute  prospectors  for  cobalt.  His 
determination  and  his  perseverance  were  fully 
rewarded.  A  rich  vein  of  cobalt  was  discovered 
on  the  North  Carolina  border,  running  across  the 
mountains  into  Tennessee. 

With  the  cell  problem  solved,  and  the  accu- 
mulator material  in  hand,  there  remained  only 


174  THOMAS  ALVA   EDISON 

the  manufacture  of  the  cells  in  such  a  way  that 
they  could  be  depended  upon  successfully  to  resist 
whatever  demand  would  be  made  upon  them  by 
commercial  use.  For  a  year  and  more,  Edison 
storage  batteries  were  put  on  automobiles  under 
conditions  which,  in  many  instances,  reduced 
the  machines  to  little  more  than  scrap  iron.  Just 
one  of  these  tests,  for  example,  was  sending  out 
six  machines,  all  of  different  designs  and  weights, 
to  travel  one  hundred  miles  a  day  for  fifty  suc- 
cessive days  over  the  worst  roads  that  could  be 
found.  As  one  of  the  inspecting  engineers  said : 

"The  worst  possible  roads  were  chosen,  and 
when  a  machine  struck  a  track  which  was  par- 
ticularly heavy  and  bad,  that  track  was  covered 
to  and  fro  all  day  until  the  hundred  miles  was 
accomplished.  At  the  end  of  the  fifty  days  the 
machines  were  little  better  than  wrecks.  Many 
sets  of  tires  were  worn  out,  axles  split,  and  screws 
wrenched  from  their  sockets,  but  when  we  came 
to  examine  the  batteries  we  found  that  in  no  single 
instance  had  the  slightest  injury  been  received. 
The  automobiles  were  fit  only  for  the  scrap  heap, 
but  the  batteries  were  in  perfect  condition  for 
another  five- thousand-mile  trip." 

First,  last,  and  all  the  time,  Edison  is  an  elec- 
trician. While  he  does  not  indulge  in  any  dreams 


"MOVIES,"  AND  THE  STORAGE  BATTERY  175 

of  electricity  as  heralding  the  millennium,  he  does 
believe  that  it  is  its  mission  to  make  the  world 
better.  Speaking  of  his  storage  battery,  he  pointed 
out  that  it  would  gradually  mean  the  exile  of  all 
horses  from  cities,  and  with  the  horses  would  go 
the  flies,  and  with  the  flies  would  be  banished  a 
host  of  diseases. 

A  boy,  a  keen,  intelligent  boy  about  fourteen 
years  of  age,  once  was  accompanying  his  father 
through  the  works  at  Orange,  listening  with  ex- 
traordinary interest  to  the  explanations  that  were 
being  given  by  Edison  to  the  elders  of  the  party. 
When  the  visitors  were  ready  to  go,  the  "  Wizard " 

—  whose  kindliness  is  as  remarkable  as  his  in- 
genuity —  turned  to  the  lad  and  said, 

"What  do  you  think  about  it  all,  son?" 

"Well,  Mr.  Edison,"  the  boy  replied,  looking 
at  him  with  admiration,  "I  think  you're  an  elec- 
trical machine  yourself." 

The  inventor  looked  at  the  lad  quizzically,  pull- 
ing his  right  eyebrow  in  the  way  with  which  all 
his  friends  are  familiar,  and  which  usually  means 
that  he  is  thinking  over  a  problem.  Then,  with 
a  bright  smile,  he  turned  and  said, 

"From  all  we  seem  to  know  about  what  life  is 

—  maybe  that's  so." 


CHAPTER  XII 

K 

MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT 

IN  the  winter  of  1914,  the  Orange  laboratories, 
from  which  had  come  so  many  wonderful  inven- 
tions, burned  to  the  ground.  In  them  was  much 
of  the  result  of  Edison's  life  work,  thousands  of 
unfinished  plans,  and  scientific  annotations  for 
the  future.  From  his  home  at  Llewelyn  Park, 
Edison  saw  the  blaze  and  came  down  the  long 
garden  walk  to  the  laboratories. 

One  of  his  associates,  a  man  in  whom  Edison 
put  his  trust  and  whom  he  cared  for  greatly, 
seeing  his  chief  standing  there,  came  forward, 
and  in  the  matter  of  fact  tone  with  which  he 
would  have  spoken  in  the  machine-shop,  said, 

"What  next,  Mr.  Edison?" 

"I'm  thinking,"  the  master  replied,  "just  how 
I'll  rebuild." 

Two  days  later,  when  raking  through  the  ashes, 
it  chanced  that  a  photograph  of  Edison,  with 
the  edges  charred,  was  found,  but  the  strong, 
kindly  face  was  looking  out  uninjured. 

176 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT         177 

One  of  the  employees,  seeing  the  "old  man" 
as  he  is  always  called  in  the  works  —  standing 
near  by,  came  forward  and  held  it  out  to  Edison. 

"We  found  this,  sir,"  he  said. 

Edison  looked  at  it  a  moment  and  smiled, 
one  of  his  long  slow  smiles.  Then,  taking  a  stub 
of  a  carpenter's  pencil  from  his  pocket,  he  wrote 
—  between  the  charred  edges  and  the  outline  of 
the  head  —  the  words, 

"Never  touched  me !" 

Was  ever  a  more  American  phrasing  of  indomi- 
table purpose ! 

There  is  no  such  word  as  "disaster"  in  Edison's 
vocabulary.  There  is  not  even  the  word  "failure." 
One  is  inevitably  reminded  of  his  swift  retort  to 
a  young  assistant  who  had  grown  weary  of  per- 
petual experiments,  thousands  of  them,  which 
had  all  ab'ke  failed  to  reach  the  desired  end. 

"It's  a  shame,"  said  this  young  fellow,  petu- 
lantly, "that  we  should  have  worked  all  these 
weeks  without  getting  any  results!" 

"Results!"  cried  Edison,  in  surprise,  "No 
results?  Why,  man,  I  have  gotten  a  lot  of  re- 
sults !  I  know  several  thousand  things  that  won't 
work." 

Difficulties  of  every  sort  have  been  thick  in 
Edison's  path.  They  appear  to  make  very  little 


178  THOMAS  ALVA    EDISON 

difference.  He  regards  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
accomplishment  very  much  as  he  does  a  "bug," 
or  awkward  difficulty,  in  the  working  of  a  piece  of 
machinery. 

The  story  of  the  impudent  office  boy  is  a  good 
example  of  this. 

Many  and  many  a  year  ago,  when  the  electric 
light  bulb  had  been  invented  and  was  first  being 
made,  one  of  the  principal  difficulties  the  inventor 
faced  was  that  of  reducing  the  cost.  Gradually  he 
was  getting  it  down  to  a  commercial  basis  when  his 
plans  were  checked  by  a  combination  of  some  of 
the  workmen  in  the  shop.  He  has  himself  told 
what  happened. 

"One  of  the  incidents,"  Edison  has  said,  "which 
led  to  a  very  great  cheapening,  resulted  from  a 
little  dispute  I  had.  When  we  started  making 
the  bulbs,  one  of  the  important  processes  had  to 
be  done  by  experts.  This  was  the  sealing  on  of 
the  part  carrying  the  filament  into  the  globe, 
which  was  rather  a  delicate  operation  in  those 
days,  and  required  several  months  of  training 
before  any  one  could  seal  in  a  number  of  parts 
per  day. 

"When  we  got  to  the  point  where  we  employed 
eighty  of  these  experts,  they  formed  a  sort  of 
union,  and  knowing  that  it  was  impossible  to 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         179 

manufacture  lamps  without  them,  they  became 
very  insolent. 

"The  son  of  one  of  these  experts  was  employed 
as  an  office  boy,  and  when  he  was  told  to  do  any- 
thing, either  he  would  not  do  it  at  all,  or  he  would 
do  it  grudgingly,  giving  an  impertinent  reply. 
He  was  ordered  to  be  discharged,  and  given  two 
weeks'  notice.  The  union  notified  us  that  unless 
the  boy  was  taken  back,  the  whole  union  would 
go  out. 

"I  didn't  propose  to  be  bulldozed  by  eighty 
men  who  thought  they  had  a  strangle-hold  on 
my  process  of  manufacture,  and  I  started  in  to 
see  if  it  were  not  possible  to  do  that  operation  by 
machinery.  After  feeling  round  for  three  days  I 
got  a  clew  to  it.  Getting  men  I  could  trust,  I 
put  them  at  work  and  made  the  prelirninary  ma- 
chinery. It  worked  fairly  well. 

"I  then  made  a  second  machine,  and  tried  a 
few  men  who  knew  nothing  about  that  sort  of 
work  on  the  machine  —  laborers  and  such.  When 
I  found  that  they  could  learn  in  half  an  hour  how 
to  work  the  machine  successfully,  I  knew  I  was 
fixed  all  right.  I  then  hurried  and  made  thirty 
of  the  machines. 

"Up  in  the  top  loft  we  stored  those  thirty 
machines,  and  the  night  before  the  office  boy  was 


i8o  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

scheduled  to  go,  we  worked  in  the  evening  up 
there,  putting  in  benches,  making  connections 
and  getting  everything  ready.  The  next  morn- 
ing we  told  the  office  boy  he  was  fired,  gave  him 
his  pay,  and  ordered  him  to  clear  out  of  the  place 
as  fast  as  his  legs  would  carry  him.  Then  the 
union  went  out.  It  has  been  out  ever  since." 

In  the  days  of  the  ore-milling  plant,  some 
labor  agitators  managed  to  get  in  among  the 
miners  and  sent  a  committee  to  Edison  to  formulate 
certain  demands.  Edison,  who  is  always  courteous, 
(except  when  on  the  rampage,  which  is  seldom) 
heard  them  with  exemplary  patience  until  one  of 
them  incautiously  used  the  word  " demands." 

"Demands,  eh?"  said  the  inventor.     "Go  on !" 

The  committee  stated  what  they  wanted  and 
arbitrarily  told  Edison  that  he  could  have  four 
days  in  which  to  decide. 

"I'll  do  the  deciding,"  he  answered^  "and  I'll 
not  need  any  four  days  about  it,  either.  Go 
back  to  Edison  [the  village]  and  the  reply  will 
be  there  by  the  time  you  are." 

He  telegraphed  to  Superintendent  Conly  to 
shut  the  works  down  then  and  there,  as  the  scale 
of  wages  was  actually  higher  than  elsewhere  and 
the  demand  was  unreasonable.  Next  morning 
the  men  came  in  a  body  and  begged  to  be  taken 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT         181 

back  on  the  old  footing.  That  was  the  last  strike 
among  Edison's  employees. 

It  is  not  because  of  his  discipline,  however,  but 
because  of  his  loyalty  to  his  men,  that  Edison 
secures  his  men's  loyalty  to  him.  A  good  ex- 
ample of  this  was  his  support  of  one  of  his  elec- 
tricians when  the  man  in  question  made  a  mis- 
statement  before  a  Board  of  Inquiry. 

On  the  board,  as  it  chanced,  were  a  couple  of 
keen  men  who  knew  a  good  deal  about  electricity, 
and  when  the  young  fellow  made  an  error,  these 
two  members  of  the  Board  tripped  him  up.  He 
defended  himself  as  best  he  could,  and,  to  his 
great  relief,  Edison,  who  was  present,  came  to 
his  rescue.  The  Board  waived  further  discussion 
because  of  Edison's  authoritative  support  of  his 
employee.  No  sooner,  however,  had  the  Board 
left  the  room  than  the  inventor  turned  to  the 
young  electrician,  who  had  been  feeling  good 
over  his  "victory,"  and  said, 

"Now,  see  here,  you  were  wrong  about  that 
whole  affair.  I  saw  that  at  a  glance." 

"I  was ? "  the  other  stammered,  amazed.  " Then 
why  on  earth,  Mr.  Edison,  did  you  indorse  me?" 

"Because  I  wasn't  going  to  let  that  crowd  have 
the  satisfaction  of  crowing  over  you  if  I  could 
help  it,"  was  the  reply. 


1 82  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

Is  it  small  wonder  that  his  associates  will  stay 
faithful  to  the  last  gasp  ? 

In  his  general  handling  of  men,  Edison  has  the 
same  idea  as  the  Irishman  who  declared, 

"There's  only  two  ways  of  putting  a  pig  through 
a  hole  in  a  fence;  you  can  coax  him,  or  you  can 
kick  him  through.  It  all  depends  on  the  pig. 
But  one  or  the  other  works,  every  time." 

Ninety-nine  times  out  of  every  hundred,  Edison 
believes  in  the  "  coaxing "  mode  of  treatment. 
But  he  can  be  drastic  at  times,  in  action  as  well 
as  in  speech.  Quite  frequently,  too,  his  rebukes 
have  a  thoroughly  American  twang;  as,  for  ex- 
ample, when  he  dismissed  an  assistant  who  was 
loafing  on  the  job  with  the  remark, 

"You'd  better  get  out  of  this.  You're  too  slow 
for  real  work.  It  would  take  you  half  an  hour 
to  creep  out  of  the  field  of  a  microscope.'7 

It  is  necessary  that  Edison  should  understand 
the  handling  of  men,  for  in  industries  directly 
attributable  to  him,  not  less  than  quarter  of  a 
million  men  are  employed,  in  the  United  States 
and  abroad.  The  laboratory  staff,  as  of  old,  is 
kept  down  to  men  whom  Edison  knows  personally, 
almost  intimately,  and  these  men,  to  a  greater 
extent  than  any  one  else  in  the  world,  know  the 
inventor's  inmost  thoughts.  In  his  laboratory 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT         183 

he  is  full  of  ease  and  geniality,  with  a  quick  humor 
of  his  own  and  an  intense  appreciation  of  a  good 
story.  He  is  also  a  home-loving  man,  having 
been  twice  married,  and  having  a  daughter  and 
two  sons. 

When,  in  July,  1915,  Edison  was  appointed  as 
Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Civilian  Inventors, 
the  appointment  was  felt  to  be  a  superb  and 
fitting  capstone  to  his  career.  At  the  age  of 
sixty-seven  years,  he  was  incomparably  the  great- 
est American  to  whom  the  nation  could  turn  for 
wisdom  in  peace  or  war. 

If  the  previous  history  of  Edison  is  any  clew  to 
his  future  activities,  one  may  premise  that  now 
he  has  done  more  than  invent  something  himself, 
he  has  given  a  stimulus  which  has  made  the  United 
States  itself  an  inventor.  He  has  marshaled  the 
power  of  sheer  brain.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  he  has  made  a  nation  realize 
that  its  chief  military  defense  lies  in  intelligence, 
especially  as  expressed  by  science. 

Cromwell  said,  "  Trust  in  God  and  keep  your 
powder  dry." 

Napoleon  said,  "  God  is  on  the  side  of  the  heaviest 
battalions." 

Edison  said,  "If  you  know  you're  right,  there's 
always  a  way  to  win." 


1 84  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

There  is  a  certain  historical  perspective  in  these 
three  sayings,  which  range  from  blind  faith  and 
brute  courage  to  analysis  and  inventiveness. 
Cromwell's  cry  is  a  cry  for  courage,  Napoleon's 
a  cry  for  force,  and  Edison's  a  cry  for  judgment. 

Now  that  this  master  mind  of  adaptive  in- 
genuity is  at  the  head  of  the  Board  which  is  de- 
signed to  play  its  part  in  American  affairs,  it  is 
timely  to  remember  that  Napoleon  is  peculiarly 
a  favorite  of  Edison.  When  the  great  African 
explorer,  Henry  M.  Stanley,  called  once  at  Menlo 
Park  and  spent  the  evening  with  Edison,  the 
inventor  showed  him  what  was  then  his  latest 
invention  —  the  phonograph. 

Stanley  was  fascinated  with  the  instrument, 
but  even  his  admiration  for  its  value  in  recording 
the  voices  of  the  living  could  not  keep  him  from 
unavailing  regrets  that  ancient  times  had  not 
known  the  phonograph,  and  so  handed  down,  on 
imperishable  cylinders,  the  voices  of,  the  great 
men  and  women  who  have  made  history. 

Edison  agreed,  and  Stanley,  desirous  of  finding 
Edison's  point  of  view  on  the  past,  said, 

"Mr.  Edison,  suppose  it  were  possible  to  ob- 
tain a  phonographic  record  of  one  person's  voice, 
some  one  person  who  had  lived  in  the  past,  and 
no  more,  whom  would  you  choose?" 


THE  KEEN-EARED  "DEAF"  INVENTOR. 

Thomas  A.  Edison,  in  his  phonograph  workshop,  listening  to  one  of  his 
new  diamond-point  machines. 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         185 

The  question  was  an  entirely  new  one  to  the 
inventor.  As  Stanley  recounts  the  occurrence, 
Edison  closed  his  eyes,  folded  his  hands  across 
his  knees  and  thought  profoundly.  There  was 
silence  for  several  minutes.  Then  Edison,  open- 
ing his  eyes  again,  said  with  an  air  of  positive 
certainty  in  his  tone, 

"  Napoleon!" 

Both  Stanley  and  Mrs.  Stanley,  who  was  present, 
protested.  Stanley,  with  a  natural  liking  for  his 
own  line  of  exploration,  wanted  to  hear  the  famous 
world-challenging  laugh  of  Sir  Francis  Brake,  and 
Mrs.  Stanley  expressed  a  desire  to  hear  blind 
Homer  chanting  the  Iliad. 

"No,"  Edison  repeated,  "Napoleon.  It  must 
have  been  a  voice  with  a  curious  force  behind  it. 
A  cylinder  would  be  interesting." 

In  the  discussion  following,  he  showed  a  re- 
markable knowledge  of  the  principles  of  Napoleonic 
military  strategy,  though  at  what  time  in  his  busy 
life  he  studied  tactics  is  difficult  to  place. 

It  is  significant  that  Sarah  Bernhardt  should 
have  thought  that  in  some  ways  Edison  resembled 
Napoleon.  In  her  "  Memoirs,"  describing  a  visit  of 
two  days  spent  at  the  Edison  household,  she  writes : 

"I  looked  at  this  man  of  medium  height,  with 
a  head  slightly  too  large  and  a  profile  full  of  nobility, 


1 86  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

and  I  thought  of  Napoleon  I.  There  certainly  is  a 
strong  physical  resemblance  between  these  two 
men,  and  I  am  sure  that  it  is  a  case  where  the  two 
brains  would  be  found  to  be  identical." 

One  may  disagree  with  Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt. 
Though  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest  tragediennes 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  here  she  shows  herself 
a  little  at  fault  in  psychology.  In  one  most  im- 
portant particular,  Edison  and  Napoleon  are  at 
opposite  poles.  And,  since  Edison's  appointment 
as  Chairman  of  the  Civilian  Inventors,  this  point 
is  all-important. 

Napoleon  was  reckless  of  human  life.  Edison 
is  extremely  sensitive  as  to  its  value. 

In  Edison  is  none  of  the  cold  aloofness  which  is 
supposed  to  belong  to  the  pure  scientist,  such,  for 
example,  as  has  given  to  Mme.  Curie  the  title 
of  "the  little  gray  lady  of  stone."  He  himself  is 
vibrant  with  life,  and  the  human  side  of  his  in- 
ventions is  always  emphasized.  He  is  a  firm  believer 
in  the  old  proverb,  "Life  is  larger  than  logic." 

One  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  this  oc- 
curred when  he  was  asked  to  assist  the  State  of 
New  York  in  experimentation  for  the  purpose  of 
establishing  electrocution  as  a  means  for  capital 
punishment.  Edison  refused,  point  blank. 

The  governor  of  New  York  had  appointed  a 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         187 

special  commission  to  investigate  the  whole  ques- 
tion, and  the  chairman  of  this  commission  had  a 
long  conference  with  the  inventor.  Finally,  Edi- 
son acceded  to  his  requests  that  some  experiments 
might  be  made  at  Menlo  Park,  but  he  made  some 
sweeping  stipulations.  He  would  only  agree  that 
his  works  might  be  used  on  the  condition  that  the 
experiments  were  devoted  to  rinding  out  the  place 
and  the  method  of  applying  the  electrodes  with 
the  smallest  amount  of  pain.  A  phrase  in  one  of 
Edison's  letters  has  often  been  quoted.  Speaking 
of  this  question  of  electrocution,  he  said, 

"I  should  be  sorry  to  see  electricity  put  to  so 
bad  a  use." 

After  a  long  series  of  experiments  made  at  other 
places  besides  Menlo  Park,  and  after  a  long  fight 
in  the  courts,  the  State  of  New  York  finally  adopted 
electrocution  as  the  mode  of  execution.  When 
the  date  for  the  first  execution  was  set,  and  twenty- 
one  scientists  were  invited  to  the  momentous 
occasion,  Edison  alone  was  absent.  In  his  letter 
to  the  Warden  of  Sing  Sing,  excusing  himself 
from  attendance,  the  great  American  inventor 
said,  in  memorable  words, 

"  There  are  wonderful  possibilities  in  each 
human  soul,  and  I  cannot  endorse  a  method  of 
punishment  which  destroys  its  usefulness." 


1 88  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

In  spite  of  this,  Edison  is  no  "  peace-at-any- 
price"  type  of  man.  He  has  faced  too  many 
difficulties  in  his  own  life  not  to  know  that  it  is 
sometimes  necessary  to  fight,  and  fight  hard,  to 
overcome  obstacles.  He  has  grimly  faced  ap- 
parent defeat  for  months  at  a  time,  only  to  wear 
down  these  enemies  of  refractory  chemicals  or 
machines  that  "simply  wouldn't  go,"  at  the  last 
to  achieve  victory  in  what  had  appeared  to  be  a 
hopeless  campaign. 

In  addition  to  this  type  of  mind  —  the  most 
valuable  and  the  most  American  conceivable  — 
Edison  is  well  acquainted  with  the  principles  under- 
lying war  machinery.  Explosives  have  always 
been  a  matter  of  particular  interest  to  him.  Ever 
since  the  day  when,  as  a  small  boy,  he  blew  out 
the  front  of  a  stove  by  trying  to  see  what  gun- 
cotton  would  do  when  put  in  a  tin  can  and  then 
placed  in  the  fire,  he  has  been  interested  in  the 
sudden  expansion  of  substances  into  gas  —  in 
other  words,  in  explosions. 

One  of  the  few  times  when  Edison  ever  was 
afraid  of  anything  was  when  he  was  still  a  young 
telegraph  operator  in  Detroit.  He  had  been 
reading  of  the  power  of  nitroglycerine  and  the 
ease  with  which  it  could  be  made.  He  and  a 
companion  made  some.  They  experimented  with 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT         189 

it,  fortunately  in  tiny  quantities,  and  were  nearly 
blown  out  of  the  place. 

Then,  and  only  then,  did  it  occur  to  Edison 
that  he  had  enough  nitroglycerine  in  that  small 
room  to  blow  up  two  or  three  city  blocks.  The 
explosive  was  put  in  a  sarsaparilla  bottle  and 
tightly  corked.  Creeping  out  stealthily,  under 
cover  of  night,  the  two  telegraph  operators  — 
feeling  like  Guy  Fawkes  conspirators  —  went  to 
the  nearest  sewer  opening,  where,  first  fastening 
a  string  to  the  neck  of  the  bottle  so  that  it  could 
be  lowered  without  any  shock  or  concussion,  they 
let  it  down  into  the  sewer.  Had  it  hit  violently 
against  the  wall  of  the  sewer,  the  whole  section  of 
the  street  would  have  gone  up  in  the  air  and 
Edison  with  it.  But,  fortunately  for  Detroit, 
wherever  that  sarsaparilla  bottle  may  be  now,  it 
hasn't  exploded  yet. 

Even  nitroglycerine,  however,  is  a  safe  and 
comfortable  companion  compared  to  iodide  of 
nitrogen,  the  explosive  power  of  which  is  nearly 
four  thousand  feet  a  second.  Besides  this,  Edison 
has  made  explosives  still  more  powerful,  and  still 
more  delicate  to  handle.  Some  of  these  are  so 
unstable  that  if  shouted  at,  the  vibrations  of  the 
voice  will  "send  them  off"  -and  possibly  the 
shouter  will  go  off,  too ! 


igo  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

A  story  is  told  of  the  way  in  which  Edison  got 
rid  of  a  party  of  ministers  who  —  in  the  early 
days  —  visited  his  laboratory.  They  wouldn't  go 
away.  Hints  were  of  no  use.  The  parsons  hadn't 
anything  special  to  do  and  they  stayed  and  stayed 
until  Edison  was  nearly  wild.  After  his  patience 
was  exhausted,  an  idea  occurred  to  him. 

"  Taking  some  of  the  material  he  had  been  ex- 
perimenting with,"  says  F.  A.  Jones,  "he  put  a 
drop  or  two  about  the  room  —  in  places  where 
there  was  no  danger  of  a  minister  being  blown 
through  a  window.  The  visitors  watched  him 
with  growing  interest,  apparently  felt  no  uneasiness 
at  his  actions,  but  rather  crowded  round  him  the 
more. 

"Then  the  inventor  took  a  seat  at  the  bench 
and  continued  his  investigations.  Presently  he 
jumped  up  with  a  dramatic  1 1  have  it ! '  and 
knocked  a  heavy  book  off  the  table  so  that  it  fell 
with  a  crash  to  the  floor. 

"What  followed  was  rather  worse  than  Edison 
had  intended.  No  windows  were  broken,  but 
through  the  deafening  explosion  which  occurred, 
a  number  of  glass  bottles  were  smashed,  an  elec- 
trical apparatus  was  put  out  of  business,  a  table 
was  overturned,  and  the  ministers  were  frightened 
almost  out  of  their  wits.  They  put  their  hands 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT         191 

to  their  heads  in  evident  fear  of  something  worse, 
and  then  asked  what  had  happened. 

"  Edison  took  the  matter  very  coolly  and  ex- 
plained that  such  explosions  were  constantly  hap- 
pening, though  he  was  glad  to  say  they  hadn't 
killed  any  one  since  the  fall.  He  hoped  there 
would  not  be  another  bust-up  that  day,  but  you 
never  could  tell.  The  ministers  declared  it  was 
all  very  interesting,  but  they  guessed  they'd  better 
be  going,  and  grabbing  their  hats,  they  hastily 
bade  the  inventor  good-by  and  departed." 

At  least  a  score  of  explosive  devices,  entirely 
new,  unknown  to  any  nation  in  the  world,  exist 
in  half-developed  state  in  Edison's  notebooks. 
He  has  not  carried  them  forward  to  full  practical 
usefulness,  owing  to  his  persistent  belief  that  the 
main  purpose  of  life  is  to  create,  not  to  destroy. 

During  the  last  twenty  years,  Edison  has  been 
besieged  by  requests  from  foreign  governments, 
offering  hints  of  great  reward  if  he  would  turn  his 
attention  to  the  invention  of  devices  for  war. 
To  each  and  all  of  these  the  inventor  returned  a 
polite,  but  a  decided  refusal. 

In  the  spring  of  1895,  during  one  of  the  many 
crises  of  the  Venezuelan  dispute,  there  was  an 
epidemic  of  suggestions  as  to  various  means  for 
national  defense.  As  Edison  had  worked  with 


1 92  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

W.  Scott  Sims  some  time  before  in  the  perfection 
of  a  submarine  torpedo  boat  operated  by  elec- 
tricity, there  was  a  general  feeling  that  he  might 
lend  his  services.  By  indirect  channels,  the  in- 
ventor was  approached  in  the  interests  of  the 
Navy  Department.  The  exact  result  of  the 
conference  was  never  disclosed,  but  Edison  con- 
tinued his  work  on  the  perfecting  of  the  phono- 
graph—  on  which  he  was  engaged  at  the  time 
—  and  the  Navy  Department  said  nothing  more. 

The  Sims-Edison  dirigible  submarine  torpedo 
boat  was  the  first  of  its  kind.  In  this  ingenious 
device,  when  the  torpedo  was  fired  from  a  land 
fort  or  from  a  battleship,  it  trailed  after  it  a  long 
electric  cable.  This  was  on  a  drum  aboard  the 
torpedo  and  the  line  was  paid  out  as  the  craft 
proceeded,  thus  eliminating  any  dragging  of 
weight  through  the  water.  The  cable  passed 
through  a  small  hawse  pipe  at  a  slight  angle  to 
the  stern,  so  that  it  should  have  a  continuous 
metal  contact. 

Through  this  line  and  contact,  all  the  operations 
of  the  torpedo  could  be  controlled  from  the  point 
of  its  original  sending.  It  could  be  steered,  it 
could  be  raised  and  lowered  in  the  water,  its 
speed  could  be  regulated,  and  every  detail  carried 
out  by  the  several  wires  in  this  small  cable.  The 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         193 

principle  was  —  and  is  still  —  susceptible  of  de- 
velopment into  a  deadly  means  of  warfare.  In 
this  submarine,  Edison's  part  was  the  long-distance 
transmission  patent,  not  the  actual  machine  of 
war.  At  the  time  Edison,  in  an  interview,  fore- 
casted the  great  development  of  submarines  and 
stated  that  the  nation  which  paid  the  most  atten- 
tion to  this  form  of  defense  was  likely  to  secure 
control  of  the  seas. 

Another  of  the  inventor's  ideas,  also  partly 
prophetic  but  still  entirely  original,  was  the  "fly- 
ing torpedo  boat."  The  main  difference  between 
Edison's  flying  torpedo  boats  and  the  modern 
war  aeroplanes  is,  that  the  Edison  craft  were  small 
and  automatic,  not  needing  an  aviator.  As  he 
himself  suggested,  these  " birds  of  destruction" 
could  be  sent  up  in  flights  of  a  hundred  or  more, 
and  a  flock  of  them  could  drop  bombs  with  a  time 
release  on  a  hostile  fleet  or  an  invading  army. 
When  asked  about  the  cost,  he  replied, 

"Well,  yes,  they  might  cost  a  bit.  But  a  flock 
of  'em  couldn't  cost  as  much  as  one  human 
life." 

On  the  question  of  the  possible  invasion  of 
America,  Edison,  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War,  was  a  thorough-paced  optimist. 
When  the  opinions  of  military  strategists  were 


194  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

quoted  that  it  would  be  no  great  task  to  capture 
New  York,  he  answered, 

"It  would  be  more  difficult  for  a  fleet  of  war- 
ships to  enter  New  York  Harbor  than  it  would 
be  for  a  dozen  fishing  boats  to  capture  Gibraltar.'1 

To  Edison,  characteristically,  the  value  of  a 
human  life  is  almost  solely  the  work-value  of  that 
life.  He  is  not  greatly  concerned  about  it  in  any 
other  regard.  He  has  never  troubled  himself 
with  philosophy  or  metaphysics.  He  has  strong 
opinions,  but  they  deal  almost  entirely  with  the 
way  in  which  a  man  can  best  live  to  do  a  life's 
worth  of  work. 

On  the  question  of  eating,  Edison  has  clear 
ideas.  He  believes  in  constant  changes  of  food 
and  declares  that  nature  craves  variety.  "  People 
who  eat  nothing  but  rice  think  nothing  but  rice," 
he  said  once,  a  little  unjustly.  He  has  a  poor 
opinion  of  "food  faddists,"  but  thinks  that  most 
persons  eat  too  much,  especially  of  meat. 

He  has  been  quite  a  heavy  smoker,  rarely 
averaging  less  than  five  to  ten  cigars  a  day,  even 
now  that  he  has  "knocked  off  smoking,"  but 
he  is  a  bitter  foe  to  cigarettes.  He  declares  the 
poison  acrolein,  which  is  found  in  some  cigarette 
papers,  "one  of  the  most  terrible  drugs  in  its  effect 
on  the  human  body.  I  really  believe  it  often 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         195 

makes  boys  insane.  The  harm  that  such  a  deadly 
poison,  when  taken  into  the  system,  must  inflict 
upon  a  growing  lad  is  horrible  to  contemplate." 

His  own  capacity  for  work  and  his  ability  to 
achieve,  Edison  assigns  largely  to  his  power  of 
shaking  off  worry  and  to  his  knack  of  staying 
awake  as  long  as  he  needs  to,  and  going  to  sleep 
at  a  second's  notice,  if  the  time  to  sleep  has  come. 
He  has  also  the  rare  gift  of  being  wakened  out  of  a 
sleep  suddenly  and  not  feeling  "  grouchy." 

"When  he  would  lie  down  to  take  an  hour's 
sleep,"  wrote  one  of  his  assistants,  in  the  old  Newark 
days,  ''after  working,  perhaps,  on  something  for  a 
couple  of  days  or  more,  and,  for  some  important 
reason  we  had  to  wake  him  up,  and  nearly  shake 
the  life  out  of  him  in  doing  so  [Edison  is  a  profound 
and  heavy  sleeper],  he  never  showed  any  irritability, 
but  would  merely  tell  us  to  'go  easy'  and  not 
'knock  all  the  stuffing  out'  of  him." 

In  appearance,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  Edison 
conveys  his  character.  He  looks  like  a  beneficent 
conqueror.  His  forehead  is  high  and  his  features 
sharp,  though  the  face  is  round.  His  eyes,  which 
are  blue-gray,  have  a  straight  and  often  humorous 
glance.  His  physique  is  good,  and  he  looks 
"fit."  He  dresses  like  most  American  business 
men,  the  tales  of  his  disregard  for  appearances 


196  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

being  exaggerated.  People  who  have  met  him 
in  his  laboratory,  and  who  have  commented  on 
"chemical  stains  on  his  sleeves"  show  little  know- 
ledge of  laboratories  and  less  of  working  scientists. 
The  art  of  dress  is  to  fit  the  costume  to  the  oc- 
cupation, and  Edison  in  his  laboratory  gives  the 
sense  of  being  well  kept.  Only  the  superficial 
observer,  inclined  to  hero-worship,  would  find 
anything  at  which  to  cavil. 

This  foolish  popular  yarn  of  Edison's  disregard 
for  his  personal  appearance  is  of  the  same  character 
as  many  of  the  tales  of  his  absent-mindedness. 
Like  all  deep  thinkers,  he  is  apt  to  become  im- 
mersed in  thought.  This,  to  people  who  rarely 
think,  is  hardly  comprehensible.  As  a  matter  of 
actual  fact,  however,  Edison's  mind  is  agile,  and 
he  can  pass  from  one  subject  to  another  —  in  his 
own  range  —  with  absolute  ease. 

It  has  been  said  that  Edison  gives  the  idea  of  a 
beneficent  conqueror.  In  one  of  the  best-poised 
and  most  understanding  appreciations  of  the  great 
American  that  has  ever  been  made  (appearing 
anonymously  in  the  American  Magazine),  this  side 
of  Edison's  character  is  brought  out  with  great 
force.  The  tale  is  there  told  of  the  inventor's 
latest  conquest,  this  time,  again,  a  conquest  for 
the  benefit  of  the  whole  nation. 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND  PATRIOT         197 

In  Edison's  various  activities,  especially  in  the 
making  of  phonograph  records,  he  needs  approxi- 
mately a  ton  and  a  half  of  carbolic  acid  a  day. 
Carbolic  acid  is  a  product  of  distilling  coal  tar 
at  a  certain  given  high  temperature.  Ten  tons 
of  carbolic  acid  a  week  is  a  large  quantity,  and 
anything  occurring  to  cramp  the  securing  of  so 
much  material  means  loss. 

When  the  European  War  broke  out,  there  were 
large  supplies  of  carbolic  acid  on  hand,  all  over 
the  United  States,  the  manufacturers  and  whole- 
salers who  imported  it  from  Europe  being  well 
stocked.  As  the  war  continued,  however,  this 
supply  began  to  run  short,  and  in  the  spring  of 
1915  Edison,  among  many  others,  faced  a  situa- 
tion which  meant  curtailment  of  industry  and 
consequent  hardship  for  American  workers. 

"Let's  make  carbolic  acid  here,  in  the  United 
States,"  suggested  Edison  to  the  big  drug  manu- 
facturing houses. 

"Can't  be  done,"  was  the  reply. 

"Why  can't  it  be  done?-"  persisted  Edison. 

"American  coal  has  never  been  used  for  it." 

"Why  not?" 

"It  doesn't  yield  to  the  same  process  as  English 
coal." 

"Have  you  tried?" 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 


"Every  way  we  know  how." 

"Why  can't  you  get  carbolic  acid  out  of  American 
coal?" 

"We  don't  know." 

"Why  don't  you  know?"  came  the  insistent 
question,  and  the  manufacturers  of  1915,  like  the 
shipyard  carpenters  of  sixty  years  before,  found 
themselves  silenced. 

Edison  went  back  to  his  works. 

"Look  here,  boys,"  he  said,  "I  can't  get  hold 
of  enough  carbolic  acid  to  run  us  more  than  a 
month.  By  that  time  we've  got  to  find  out  how 
to  make  it  here.  I  need  it,  for  one  thing,  and 
there's  dozens  of  other  industries  that  need  it,  as 
well." 

There  followed  one  of  the  old  orgies  of  work. 
For  four  days  Edison  was  invisible  to  any  one 
except  his  laboratory  staff.  He  —  and  they  — 
slept  around  the  laboratory  building  when  their 
eyes  glued  together  for  lack  of  sleep.  In  the  four- 
day  period,  the  inventor  himself  lay  down  but 
twice,  once  for  five  hours  and  once  for  seven. 

On  the  morning  of  the  fifth  day  the  superin- 
tendent of  one  of  the  big  mechanical  divisions 
was  called  to  the  laboratory.  Haggard  and  worn 
out,  but  triumphant,  Edison  put  some  plans  into 
his  hand. 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         199 

"I'll  give  you  just  three  weeks,"  he  said,  "to 
put  up  this  plant,  make  all  the  machinery  those 
plans  call  for,  and  install  it  in  full  running  order." 

"All  right,  Mr.  Edison,"  was  the  reply. 

The  mechanician  —  he  would  not  have  been  a 
superintendent  under  Edison  unless  he  was  that 
sort  of  a  man  —  did  not  turn  a  hair,  though  the 
job  looked  almost  impossible. 

Before  noon  of  that  day,  ground  was  broken  for 
a  new  building.  Men  by  scores  were  thrown 
into  the  work,  laboring  three  shifts  of  eight  hours 
a  day.  Edison  and  the  superintendent  of  the 
job  worked  one  shift  a  day  —  averaging  about 
twenty  hours. 

On  the  seventeenth  day  the  plant  was  open  and 
in  full  blast.  The  product  was  found  to  be  in 
every  way  as  good  as  the  English  product.  Once 
again  the  supposedly  impossible  had  been  achieved, 
and  through  the  genius  of  Edison,  the  industries 
which  were  likely  to  be  crippled  may  proceed 
unhindered.  A  few  slight  improvements  in  cheap- 
ening the  price  will  retain  this  market  for  the 
United  States  forever. 

It  was  about  ten  days  after  this  victory  that 
Edison  was  interviewed  and  gave  utterance  to  his 
ideas  on  America's  relation  to  the  world,  whether 
it  be  in  times  of  war  or  in  cycles  of  peace. 


200  THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

"There's  the  real  war,"  he  cried,  tapping  with 
his  finger  nail  certain  substances  on  the  table, 
which  were  recognized  as  raw  materials  usually 
imported  from  Europe  and  for  the  lack  of  which 
American  trade  was  suffering;  "the  only  war  in 
which  humanity  has  anything  permanent  at  stake. 
Get  into  Nature's  intrenchments  and  make  her 
give  up !  That's  what  we  must  do.  We've  been 
depending  too  much  on  other  people  to  do  it  for 
us,  too  satisfied  to  be  a  nation  of  assemblers, 
putting  together  what  we  can  pick  up  quickest  and 
cheapest.  Now  the  other  people  can't  give  us 
our  material  any  more,  and  where  are  we? 

"Substitutes,  substitutes,  we've  got  to  find  them. 
Countless  —  no  end  —  my  head  is  buzzing  with 
them. 

"It  has  been  too  easy  for  us  to  import  our 
materials.  This  European  War  came  along  to 
put  us  to  it  and  teach  us  to  depend  on  ourselves. 
I'm  learning  how.  I've  been  as  bad  as  the  rest 
of  the  American  manufacturers  —  maybe  not 
quite  as  bad,  but  bad  enough.  I'm  learning, 
though,  learning  fast." 

Seldom  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  there 
been  a  more  stimulating  call  to  arms  than  this 
great  cry  of  Edison's.  It  is  a  cry  to  every  boy 
and  man  in  the  United  States.  It  is  a  summons 


MASTER  OF  MEN  AND   PATRIOT         201 

to  a  nobler  and  loftier  ideal  than  has  ever  been 
worded  before.  It  is  a  phrasing  of  an  unparalleled 
opportunity  for  greatness.  It  is  the  beginning  of 
an  era  when  the  rallying  call  to  youth  and  to  man- 
hood is  the  welfare  of  the  race,  expressed  in  terms 
of  usefulness,  not  of  dream  and  fantasy.  It  is  the 
new  chivalry  which  establishes  a  new  order  of 
knighthood  —  the  men  who  work  to  make  life 
richer  for  their  fellows. 

And,  at  the  head,  blazoning  the  way  to  this 
newer  glory,  as  he  has  blazoned  the  way  to  progress 
for  fifty  years  and  more,  stands  the  great  figure  of 
the  great  American,  calling  aloud, 

"Come  on,  boys!  I'm  learning,  I'm  learning 
fast!" 


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